\RTIN  GREAT  BRirAIN 
AND  IRELAND 


UC-NRLF, 


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PECIES 

■MIlXEl 


SIR  WALTER  ARMSTRONG 


^ 


REESE  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA.    | 


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i 


ARS    UNA  :    SPECIES    MILLE 
GENERAL   HISTORY    OF    ART 


Volumes  in  preparation  :  — 

BYZANTINE  ART. 

THE  ART  OF  INDIA. 

EGYPTIAN  ART. 

FLEMISH  ART. 

FRENCH  ART. 

GERMAN  ART. 

THE  ART  OF  GREECE. 

ART  IN  HOLLAND. 

THE  ART  OF  CHINA  AND  JAPAN. 

ART  IN  AMERICA. 

ROMAN  ART. 

THE  ART  OF  NORTHERN  ITALY. 

THE  ART  OF  SOUTHERN  ITALY. 

SPANISH  AND  PORTUGUESE  ART. 


iternet  Archive 
nding  from 
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littp://www.arcliive.org/details/artingreatbritaiOOarmsrich 


ARS    UNA:    SPECIES    MILLE 
GENERAL  HISTORY  OF  ART 


ART  IN 

GREAT   BRITAIN 

AND    IRELAND 

BY 

SIR    WALTER    ARMSTRONG 

n 

DIRECTOR  OF  THE  NATIONAL  GALLERY  OF  IRELAND 


Hogarth 


NEW  YORK 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
MCMIX 


Ul 


M 


ff£i£&- 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


This  volume  is  published  simultaneously  in 
America  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New 
York;  in  Eiiglnnd  by  William  Heinemann, 
London;  also  in  Frettch  by  Hachette  et  Cie, 
Paris;  in  German  by  Julius  Hoffmann, 
Stuttgart;  in  Italian  by  the  Istituto  Italiano 
D'Arti  Grafiche,  Bergamo;  in  Spanish  by  the 
Libreria  Gutenberg  de  Jose  Ruiii,  Madrid. 


PREFACE 

The  history  of  art  in  the  British  Isles — which  still  remains  to  be 
written — will  be  the  history  of  a  frequently  arrested  and  frequently 
diverted  development.  The  remains  which  have  come  down  to  us 
contradict  the  assumption,  too  often  made,  that  the  unequally  mixed 
race  inhabiting  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  is  essentially  inartistic, 
and  that,  if  left  to  itself,  it  would  have  produced  little  or  nothing 
with  which  the  historian  of  art  need  have  been  greatly  concerned. 
It  is  true  that  the  Celtic  and  Latin  elements  in  our  population 
deserve  the  credit  of  most  that  is  good  in  our  aesthetic  produc- 
tion, but,  after  all,  those  Celtic  and  Latin  elements  are  an  integral 
part  of  our  race,  and  we  have  as  much  right  to  take  pride  in  their 
achievements  as  in  the  political  virtues  which  may  perhaps  spring 
chiefly  from  the  Teutonic  strain  in  our  blood.  It  is  impossible  to 
deny  the  aesthetic  gifts  of  a  people  which  has  left  behind  it  such 
remains  as  those  of  early  Christian  art  in  Ireland,  as  the  exquisite 
churcl|es  which  stud  the  whole  of  Britain,  from  Chichester  to  Elgin, 
as  the  manuscripts  of  the  twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  fourteenth  centuriies 
and  the  needlework  of  about  the  same  period,  as  the  perpendicular 
style  of  Gothic  architecture,  as  the  miniature  portraits  turned  out  in 


205572 


PREFACE 

such  countless  numbers  between  the  days  of  HilHard  and  those  of 
Cosway,  as  the  renaissance  architecture  of  Inigo  Jones  and  Wren 
and  their  disciples,  as  the  works  of  the  great  portrait  painters  of  the 
eighteenth  century  and  the  landscape  painters  who  followed  them. 
To  all  these  instances  we  may  even  add  many  of  the  results  of  the 
Gothic  revival  in  the  nineteenth  century.  That  movement  may  have 
been  a  mistaken  one,  founded  rather  upon  archaeological  than  artistic 
ambitions,  but  it  led,  at  least,  to  the  erection  of  a  vast  number  of 
buildings  in  which  the  forms  of  Gothic  architecture  were  used  to 
produce  harmonious  creations,  and  to  a  few  grandiose  piles,  such  as 
the  Palace  of  Westminster,  which  are  marvels,  considering  the 
period  of  their  conception  and  the  rapidity  of  their  construction. 
We  might  even  point  to  later  developments  still,  as  proof  of  the 
artistic  capacity  of  our  race.  Has  any  people  ever  drawn  itself 
more  rapidly  out  of  a  non-artistic  morass  than  the  younger  English 
and  Scottish  architects  out  of  the  chaos  of  nonsense  building  which 
prevailed  here  twenty — or  even  ten — years  ago  }  Far  from  com- 
plete as  this  process  still  is,  it  has  gone  far  enough  to  show  that, 
when  properly  treated,  British  architects  still  have  in  them  much  of 
the  spirit  of  Jones  and  Wren,  and  to  suggest  that,  given  opportunity 
and  freedom,  they  might  approach  the  triumphs  of  those  two  great 
builders. 

For  each  of  our  happy  periods  and  categories,  we  islanders  can 
point  to  things  of  first-rate  merit.  Nothing,  in  their  own  way,  can 
be  set  before  those  remains  of  Celtic  art  which  are  chiefly  to  be 
found  in  Ireland.  The  two  centuries  and  a  half  which  saw  the 
birth,  development,  and  decay  of  Gothic  architecture  produced 
nothing  more  perfect  than  the  interior  of  Westminster  Abbey,  or  the 
northeastern  aspect  of  Salisbury,  or  Lincoln  as  a  whole,  or  more 
superbly  original  than  the  chapels  of  Henry  VI.  and  Henry  VII. 
Renaissance  architecture  produced  nothing  liner  than  Inigo  Jones's 
first  design  for  Whitehall  and  Christopher  Wren's  St.  Paul's.  We 
need  scarcely  allude  to  the  painters  of  the  eighteenth  century,  or 


PREFACE 

even  to  the  long  line  of  miniaturists,  from  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
to  that  of  George  111.,  for  these  are  already  accepted  ;  but  we  must 
remember  that  among  the  debris  of  the  minor  arts  of  the  Gothic 
ages,  a  sufficient  number  of  English  things  exist  to  show  that  the 
metal  worker,  the  illuminator,  the  glass  painter,  the  needleworker, 
even  the  statue  maker,  practised  in  this  country  hardly  less  successfully 
than  elsewhere.  Examples  are  few,  no  doubt,  when  compared  with 
those  of  the  Continent,  but  their  quality  proves  that  in  them  we 
have  the  remains  of  a  wide-spread  activity. 

How  is  it,  then,  that  our  specimens  are  scanty,  and  their  affiliation 
often  so  difficult  to  trace  ?  This  may  be  referred  to  three  causes, 
which  acted  and  reacted  on  each  other.  The  first  was  our  insular 
position,  the  second  our  insular  character — "every  Englishman  is 
an  island," — the  third,  the  coincidence  of  political  and  religious 
upheavals  with  critical  moments  in  our  artistic  development.  It  is 
likely  enough  that  a  searching  analysis  would  fuse  these  three  into  a 
single  cause,  and  come  near  to  proving  that  all  the  peculiarities  of 
our  artistic,  as  of  our  political  history  were  due  to  the  existence  of 
the  English  Channel.  But  my  immediate  purpose  will  be  sufficiently 
served  by  beginning  later,  and  attempting  to  show  how  these  three 
conditions,  severally,  affected  both  the  progress  of  British  art  and  the 
preservation  of  its  results. 

Our  insular  position  hardly  requires  to  be  insisted  on.  To  it  we 
owe  the  nationality  which  marks  our  art  from  the  dark  ages  onward. 
If  there  had  been  no  Channel,  we  should  have  been  a  province  of 
France,  or  France  of  us,  and  artistic  forms  would  have  radiated  from 
their  points  of  origin  with  no  more  than  those  slight  and  gradual 
changes  en  route  by  which  only  the  expert  can  distinguish  between 
one  section  of  a  single  school  and  another.  Some  writers  contend 
that,  even  with  the  Channel,  we  were  nothing  but  a  French  province, 
at  least  in  architecture.  In  a  sense,  that  is  partly  true,  but  only 
so  far  as  all  movements  become  provincial  as  soon  as  they  leave  their 
initial  matrix.     Even  this  acknowledgment  should  be  made,  however. 


PREFACE 

with  reserves,  for  much  English  Gothic  has  no  French  root  at  all, 
while  the  earliest  complete  example  of  the  purely  pointed  style  is  not 
in  France,  but  in  England;  is  inspired  by  English  ideas,  not  by 
French  ;  is  carried  out  in  English  details,  not  in  those  elaborated  by 
the  builders  of  St.  Denis,  Paris,  Sens,  and  Chartres. 

The  fairest  way  to  put  the  whole  matter  is  to  say  that  what  we 
know  as  Gothic  art  was  the  form  of  expression  which  grew  naturally 
from  the  needs,  opportunities,  and  aspirations  of  the  races  which 
inhabited  northwestern  Europe,  toward  the  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Steps  in  advance  were  sometimes  taken  in  one  place,  some- 
times in  another.  Then,  as  now,  the  northern  French  were  more 
ambitious  than  their  neighbors,  were  readier  to  make  sacrifices,  had 
a  finer  sense  of  structure  and  logic,  and  a  more  generous  supply  of 
excellent  materials.  So  they  contributed  more  than  the  rest  to  the 
common  adventure.  But  that  by  no  means  justifies  the  statement 
that  in  France  alone  the  style  was  alive,  that  there  alone  men  were 
united  in  working  out  an  idea,  while  the  rest  of  the  world  hung  on 
what  they  did,  and  produced  bad  imitations.  Had  that  been  so,  a 
survey  of  mediaeval  building  would  have  been  a  simple  matter 
indeed.  We  should  merely  have  had  to  follow  the  creation  of 
forms  in  the  He  de  France  and  their  gradual  degradation  as  they 
travelled  away  from  that  centre.  English  Gothic  would  have  been 
merely  the  pale  shadow  of  French,  with  no  character  of  its  own 
at  all. ' 

But  it  has  a  decided  character.  Apart  from  the  general  principles 
of  the  style  and  the  more  or  less  inevitable  forms  to  which  they  led, 
English  Gothic  differs  from  French  as  much  as  Venetian  painting 
does  from  Florentine.  Its  aims  are  so  different  that,  nine  times  out 
of  ten,  we  find  the  beauties  of  an  English  church  corresponding  to 
the  defects  of  a  French  one,  and  vice  versa.     Its  methods  are  so 

'  The  history  of  modern  female  costume  provides  a  good  illustration  of  an  art  which  really  spreads 
from  a  centre.  Its  birth-place  is  Paris,  where  it  is  the  natural  expression  of  the  people.  The 
farther  it  goes  from  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  the  more  lifeless  and  imitative  it  becomes ;  but  it  clings 
to  its  French  forms. 

viii 


PREFACE 

distinct  that  there  is  hardly  a  detail  by  which  one  cannot  decide  at  a 
glance  the  nationality  of  the  building  on  which  it  occurs.  In  short,  we 
have  all  the  evidence  we  can  ask  that  Gothic  art  was  here  no  less 
legitimate  a  birth  of  conditions  than  in  France.  It  was  no  stolen  child. 
It  was  inferior  for  exactly  the  same  reason  that  the  English  drama  is 
inferior  to  the  French.  Our  sense  of  structure  is  not  equal  to  theirs. 
We  do  not  feel  the  necessity  as  deeply  as  they  do  of  fusing  method 
and  result  into  unity.  English  architects  attempted  no  such  com- 
binations of  structural  audacity  and  aesthetic  expression  as  the 
clerestory  of  Amiens  ;  but  neither  did  they  leave  to  posterity  any 
such  record  of  the  ambition  that  overleaps  itself  as  the  choir  of 
Beauvais  ! 

In  short,  mediaeval  architecture  in  England  has  its  own  character, 
its  own  beauties  and  defects,  its  own  masterpieces  and  failures,  which 
prove,  like  other  debris  from  the  centuries,  that  the  people  of  our 
islands  did  not  greatly  differ  from  those  of  the  Continent,  so  far  as 
their  innate  cesthetic  gifts  and  aspirations  were  concerned.  The 
country  swarmed  with  builders,  who  knew  the  style  they  worked  in 
as  they  knew  the  language  they  talked.  Now  and  then  hints 
reached  them  from  without.  Now  and  then  a  strolling  craftsman 
would  wander  in  among  them  from  some  country  of  the  sun,  while 
their  own  employers,  bishops  and  nobles,  would  stimulate  their 
ambitions  by  accounts  of  what  was  being  done  abroad.  But  their 
dialect  was  their  own,  and  in  rearing  the  sacred  and  secular  monu- 
ments with  which  they  covered  the  whole  face  of  the  country,  they 
followed  those  racial  instincts  which  have  marked  the  Briton  from 
their  day  to  ours. 

And  so  it  was  with  the  subsidiary  arts.  Cathedrals  remain — at 
least  in  countries  where  the  forces  of  destruction  were  less 
outrageously  energetic  than  they  were  beyond  the  Tweed.  But 
smaller  things  were  easily  put  out  of  existence.  The  value  of  our 
Cathedral  treasures  before  the  Reformation  was  gigantic,  but 
scarcely  anything  remains.     Judging  from  what  may  still  be  found 


PREFACE 

in  sacristies  abroad,  our  cope  chests  alone  must  have  held 
convincing  proofs  of  the  flourishing  condition  of  our  minor  arts. 
Such  a  development  as  that  of  the  famous  Opus  Anglicanum  does 
not  occur  in  a  country  which  owes  the  best  part  of  its  achievements 
to  imported  aliens.  No  one  can  study  the  English  vestments  in 
Italian  and  Spanish  churches,  or  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum,  and  believe  the  country  which  produced  them  was  a 
hopeless  laggard  in  the  arts. 

I  might  go  on  and  multiply  examples,  but  the  proper  place  for 
that  will  be  the  chapters  which  follow.  All  that  need  be  insisted 
on  for  the  moment  is  that  British  artistry  deserves  to  be  studied  for 
its  own  sake,  to  be  accepted  as  a  distinct  national  development, 
just  as  much  as  that  of  Italy  or  France.  That  its  importance  is 
comparatively  slight  is  no  reason  for  denying  its  sincerity  and 
historical  value,  or  for  approaching  it  in  a  sceptical  and  grudging 
spirit.  Its  insular  position  gave  it  its  national  character.  Without 
the  Channel  a  single  form  of  art  would  have  spread  from  the 
Pyrenees  to  the  Tay.  Britain  would  then  have  been  truly  pro- 
vincial ;  unless,  indeed — which  is  quite  within  the  bounds  of  possi- 
bility— the  centre  of  gravity  had  shifted  from  the  Seine  to  the 
Thames. 

The  nationality  of  our  art,  then,  is  to  be  credited  to  the  sea 
v/hich  circumscribes  us.  What  is  the  cause  of  our  individualism? 
That  we  are  individualistic,  intolerant  of  discipline,  inapt  for 
combination,  impatient  of  tradition,  cannot,  I  think,  be  denied. 
Our  reputation  for  conservatism  springs  from  our  individuality.  An 
Englishman  prefers  his  own  way  to  that  of  other  people.  He  likes 
to  work  out  his*  own  salvation  in  commerce  and  the  arts,  as  well  as 
in  religion.  With  him  the  process  of  evolution  is  far  from  being 
the  steady  march  it  is  with  a  truly  conservative  race,  like  the 
French,  who  confine  their  experiments  to  politics.  The  one 
European  community  which  appears  to  share  our  rampant 
individuality  is  that  which    inhabits    the  delta  of  the  Rhine,  and, 


PREFACE 

perhaps,  the  causes  are  much  the  same  in  both  cases.  Holland 
could  never  have  come  into  existence  at  all  unless  her  people  had 
been  strenuously  self-assertive.  The  modern  Dutch  are  descended 
Jrom  the  sturdy  Celtic  race  which  nature  and  Julius  Caesar  drove 
into  that  fight  with  the  Rhine  and  the  North  Sea  which  has 
persisted  for  nearly  two  thousand  years.  The  ancestors  of  the 
modern  Briton  were  the  picked  men  from  various  races  who  had 
the  energy  to  invade  these  inhospitable  islands  in  the  Atlantic  and 
to  maintain  their  ground  when  there.  If  our  history  had  been  free 
from  the  untimely  catastrophes — again  largely  due  to  our  individ- 
ualism— which  broke  the  sequence,  and  destroyed  the  creations,  of 
our  art,  this  energy  of  character  might  have  led  to  results  equal,  in 
their  different  way,  to  those  won  by  the  Italians  and  the  French. 

The  Black  Death,  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  the  Reformation,  the 
Great  Rebellion  and  the  consequent  incubus  of  the  Puritans,  each 
came  at  a  critical  moment  and  took  a  course  which  ensured  the 
largest  possible  amount  of  destruction  and  dislocation.  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  art  would  have  progressed  on  the 
lines  shown  by  such  remains  as  we  possess  from  the  Gothic  centuries, 
while  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  and  destruction  of  the  force 
which  had  chiefly  made  for  artistic  wealth  and  the  safeguarding  of 
tradition,  prevented  the  renewal  of  life  from  native  seed,  and  led 
to  unhappy  because  non-national  importations.  Then  a  brighter 
era  opened  under  Charles  I.,  only  to  be  spoilt  again  by  that 
King's  political  incapacity,  and  the  disastrous  reactions  to  which  it 
led.  To  our  insular  position  it  was  due  that  all  these  catastrophes 
were  so  complete.  Their  destructive  power  was  great  enough  to 
reach  the  sea  on  every  hand,  so  that  when  a  chance  came  tor  the 
renewal  of  life,  the  germ  had  to  be  sought  elsewhere. 

But  through  it  all  the  national  spirit  and  character  can  be  tracqjd. 
In  painting,  even  the  foreigners  who  came  here  to  show  us  the  way 
were  affected  by  their  English  milieu.  Holbein  alone  was  sturdy 
enough  to  resist  the  influence.     He   worked    in  Blackfriars  exactly 


PREFACE 

as  he  would  have  done  in  Basle,  had  he  never  left  his  home.  Van 
Dyck  in  London  was  not  the  Van  Dyck  of  Antwerp  or  Genoa. 
He  caught,  at  once,  the  English  spirit,  the  spirit  which  may  be 
recognized  in  English  art  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  that 
art  of  miniature  painting  which  alone  had  kept  its  activity  unbroken. 
It  is  to  this  sympathetic  strain  in  his  character  that  he  owes  his 
influence  over  the  course  taken  by  English  painting.  Both  before 
and  after  his  time  our  native  painters  aimed  at  a  certain  elegance 
and  simplicity  of  conception,  avoiding  irrelevance  and  making  as 
much  as  they  could  of  the  distinction  which  marked  the  society  they 
served.  The  passport  to  success  of  the  foreign  painter  settling  in 
the  country  was  ability  to  fall  in  with  this  scheme. 

W.  A. 

The  Author  and  the  Publisher  desire  to  express  their  gratitude 
to  the  following  owners  of  works  of  art  and  copyrights  without 
whose  generous  permission  many  of  the  six  hundred  illustrations 
could  not  have  been  laid  before  the  reader :  The  Royal  Academy 
of  Arts,  Sir  William  Quiller  Orchardson,  Sir  Francis  Seymour 
Haden,  Mr.  George  Salting,  Mrs.  Seeker,  Mrs.  Joseph,  Mr.  J.  C. 
Alexander,  the  Misses  Percy,  Mr.  M.  H.  Spielmann,  Mr. 
Reginald  Blomfield,  Mr.  E.  S.  Prior,  Mr.  R.  H.  Benson,  the 
Messrs.  Hook,  Mrs.  Charles  Furse,  Col.  Hutcheson  Poe,  C.B., 
Mr.  John  Murray,  Mr.  C.  J.  Longman,  the  Director  of  the 
Cambridge  University  Press,  Messrs.  Cassell  and  Co.,  Thos. 
Agnew  and  Sons,  Dowdeswell  and  Dowdeswell,  Sulley  and 
Co.,  P.  and  D.  Colnaghi,  Durlacher  Bros.,  the  Fine  Arts  Society, 
the  Directors  of  the  various  public  collections  which  have  been 
drawn  upon  for  examples,  and  practically  all  of  the  living 
Painters  and  Sculptors  whose  works  are  reproduced  in  the  later 
chapters. 

A  certain  number  of  illustrations,  especially  in  the  chapter 
dealing  with   modern    art,    have   been  left   to   tell  their  own  story 


PREFACE 

without  mention  in  the  text.  In  a  small  8vo  containing  more  than 
600  typographic  blocks  to  3 1 2  pages  of  text,  this  could  only  have 
been  avoided  either  by  unduly  compressing  the  more  important 
parts  of  the  text,  or  by  ignoring  minor  artists  altogether,  neither  of 
which  courses  seemed  advisable. 


PANEL   OF   WHALE   IVORY  : 
ADORATION   OF   THE  MAGI. 

Twelfth  Century. 
(Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.) 


The  Publisher  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to  the  following 
photographers  for  the  use  of  prints  and  negatives  in  the  preparation 
of  the  following  illustrations : 

Messrs.  Frith  &  C.^..  Ltd.,  Reigate  :  Nos.  22,  26,  31.  43,  44,  45.  47.  54.  56. 
57.  59.  60,  61,  62,  65.  69,  70.  71,  72,  73,  74.  81.  83.  84.  85,  88,  89,  90.  92.  93, 
94,  97.  98.  100,  101.  103.  104,  105.  1 14.  1 16,  120,  123,  125,  126,  127,  128,  131. 
132.  133.  135.  138,  146,  148.  151.  154.  162,  163,  167,  177,  180.  186,  196,  197. 
203,  516,  545.  Messrs.  William  M.  Spooner  Co.,  London:  Nos.  38.  41.  46. 
50,76.82,91,  102.  103.  108.  115.  117-118-119.  130.  134.  140.  141.  150.  152. 
157.  158.  168.200.  211.  213.  Mr.  W.  Lawrence.  Dublin:  Nos.  4.  8.  49.  52, 
77.  78.  79.  166.  193.  264.  Messrs.  Valentine  &  Sons.  Ltd.,  Dundee:  Nos.  21. 
165,  227.  Messrs.  Fredk.  Hollyer.  London:  Nos.  418.  421.  422.  451.  499. 
564.  565.  J.  Caswell  Smith.  Londoi:  No.  426.  Albert  Hester,  Clapton: 
No.  214.  A.  R.  Hogg.  Belfast:  No.  224.  Arthur  Pitcher:  No.  540.  Emery 
Walker  :  No.  398.  G.  W.  Wilson  &  Co..  Aberdeen  :  No.  222.  Sir  Cuthbert 
Quilter.  Bart.  :  No.  434.  Fine  Arts  Society,  publishers  of  the  large  plate  No. 
443,  and  Messrs.  Dowdeswell  &  Dowdeswell.  owners  of  the  copyright  and 
publishers  of  the  large  plate,  No.  436. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 


PAGE 

PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES— THE  IBERIANS-THE 
CELTS -CHARACTERISTICS  OF  CELTIC  ART  — THEIR  PER- 
SISTENCE          1 

CHAPTER  II 
ANGLO-SAXON  ART 16 

CHAPTER  III 
ANGLO-NORMAN  ARCHITECTURE,  OR  ROUND  ARCHED  GOTHIC    .       25 

CHAPTER  IV 
EARLY  ENGLISH.  OR  FIRST  POINTED.  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE      .       36 

CHAPTER  V 
DECORATED.   OR    SECOND    POINTED.    GOTHIC    ARCHITECTURE    .       50 

CHAPTER  VI 
PERPENDICULAR,  OR  THIRD  POINTED.  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE    .       59 

CHAPTER  VII 
THE  TUDOR   CHAOS       ............       73 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ENGLISH  RENAISSANCE— INIGO  JONES  AND  SIR  CHRISTOPHER 

WREN 87 

CHAPTER  IX 
FOLLOWERS  OF  JONES  AND  WREN  .       .       .       „       .       ,       «       .       .       97 

CHAPTER  X 
THE  CLASSIC  AND  GOTHIC  REVIVALS 105 

XV 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XI 
MODERN  RENAISSANCE ,,5 

CHAPTER  XII 
CERTAIN  MINOR  ARTS ,25 

CHAPTER  XIII 

PAINTING  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES  FROM  ITS  ORIGIN  TO  THE  BIRTH 

OF  HOGARTH ,59 

CHAPTER  XIV 
PAINTING— MIDDLE  PERIOD 1 79 

CHAPTER  XV 
MODERN  PAINTING— TURNER  TO  WATTS 209 

CHAPTER  XVI 

PAINTING— FROM      THE      PRE-RAPHAELITE     REVOLT  '  TO     THE 

PRESENT    DAY 229 

CHAPTER  XVII 
PORTRAIT-MINIATURES 249 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
WATER-COLOR  PAINTINGS— DRAWINGS 260 

CHAPTER  XIX 
SCULPTURE— FIRST  PERIOD-GOTHIC  SCULPTURE 274 

CHAPTER  XX 
SCULPTURE-MIDDLE  PERIOD 288 

CHAPTER  XXI 
SCULPTURE— PRESENT  DAY 299 

INDEX      .........,,, 313 

INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS .328 

xvi 


ART    IN    GREAT    BRITAIN 
AND    IRELAND 


CHAPTER  I 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES— THE 
IBERIANS  —  THE  CELTS  —  CHARACTERISTICS 
OF  CELTIC  ART— THEIR  PERSISTENCE 

The  earliest  monument  to  which  we  can  point  in  these  islands  as 
showing  any  trace  of  aesthetic  ambition  is  Stonehenge.  No  remains 
have  been  found  here  comparable  to  those  of  the  reindeer  hunters 
of  Southern  France,  or  the  decorations  of  the  cave  of  Altamira,  in 
Northern  Spain.  Countless  objects,  indeed,  betraying  that  love  for, 
or  at  least  interest  in,  symmetry,  which  seems  to  be  the  first  of  the 
artistic  propensities  to  declare  itself,  have  been  found  in  the  deposits 
from  both  the  Stone  Ages.  But  as  yet  we  can  point  to  little  which 
indicates  the  desire  to  imitate,  or  to  decorate,  or  to  wed  one  form 
to  another  harmoniously,  which  can  be  traced  in  the  remains  from 
the  period  of  the  reindeer  hunters.  In  a  handbook  which  professes 
to  confine  itself  to  the  fine  arts  it  is  permissible,  then,  to  begin  at 
a  comparatively  recent  date.  The  polished  stone  period  was 
the  period  of  the  Swiss  lake  dwellings,  of  dolmens,^  menhirs^ 
and  cromlechs.^  The  only  remaining  example  of  this  primitive 
architecture  which  has  any  kind  of  artistic  character  is,  as  I  have 
said,  Stonehenge.  But  that  may  date  from  a  period  almost  as  late 
as  the  beginning  of  the  Bronze  Age:  i.e.,  from  about  2000  B.C.  to 
1500  B.C.  Its  huge  blocks  are  not  rough,  but  hewn,  and  their 
disposition  shows  a  feeling  for  symmetry  and  artistic  subordination 
which  may  almost  be  called  cultivated. 

*  Tombs  of  undressed  stones,  piled  one  upon  another,  in  the  manner  of  jambs  and  lintels. 
2  Obelisks.  ^  Circles  and  avenues  of  rough  monoliths. 

1  B 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


After  Stonehenge  a  long  stride  has  to  be  taken  before  we  reach 
another  monument  of  architecture.     In  Britain,  as  all  over  Western 

Europe,     defensive     walls 


FIG.    2. — STONEHENGE,    RESTORED. 


were  the  only  stone  struc- 
tures erected  during  many 
centuries;  all  other  build- 
ings, religious  and  domes- 
tic, appear  to  have  been 
of  wood.  The  art,  then, 
of  the  Bronze  Age,  which 
succeeded  that  of  polished 
stone,  has  to  be  studied  in 
remains  of  a  less  important 
kind.  According  to  the  latest  authorities  this  age  lasted  in  Britain 
from  about  1 500  B.C.  to  about  300  B.C. 

Bronze  is  a  composite  metal  consisting  of  about  nine  parts  of 
copper  to  one  of  tin.  It  was  the  chief  material  basis  of  civilization 
all  over  Europe  and  parts  of  Asia  and  Africa,  for  a  time  variously 
calculated  by  different  archaeologists.  The  civilization  of  ancient 
Egypt  belongs  mainly  to  the  Bronze  Age.  The  copper  mines  of 
the  Isthmus  of  Suez  were  worked  as  early  as  4000  B.C.,  and  iron 
had  not  come  into  general  use  as  late  as  1 500  B.C.  Bronze  was  the 
Greek  metal  as  late  as  800  B.C.  The  Bronze  Age  in  that  part  of 
Europe  which  stretches,  like  the  mount  of  a  fan,  from  the  Caucasus 
round  by  the  north  to  Britain  and  Western  France,  did  not  come  to 
an  end  till  between  the  sixth  and  the  fourth  century  B.C. 

Although  existing  evidence  points  to  the  Caucasus  as  the 
original  home  of  the  bronze  in- 
dustry, new  discoveries  are  so 
continually  revolutionizing  our 
ideas  as  to  the  chronology  of 
early  civilization,  that  no  positive 
statement  on  that  point  can  be 
hazarded.  T^rima  facie,  it 
seems  likely  that  the  distribu- 
tion of  copper  and  tin  deposits 
would  have  much  to  do  with 
priority  in  their  use.  It  is  not 
unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
wherever  the  two  metals  were 

found  in  abundance,  a  source  of  distribution  existed,  coming  into  activity 
as  the  psychological  moment  in  the  surrounding  civilization  arrived. 


fig.  3. — stonehenge. 
(constable.) 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

The  similarity  between  the  forms  taken  by  early  bronze  objects, 
wherever  found,  is  to  be  explained  by  the  characteristics  of  the  material, 
more  often,  perhaps,  than  we  are  apt  to  suppose.  In  our  desire 
to  simplify  origins  and  round  off  theories,  we  may  be  too  ready 
to  ignore  the  forces  which  make  for  coincidence  in  human 
activities.  No  one  who  is  engaged  in  any  form  of  invention  or 
mental  production  can  deny  the  frequency  with  which  a  new  idea 
will  crop  up  simultaneously  in  several  different  quarters.  This  is  not 
necessarily  due  to  borrowing,  nor  to  pure  accident.  It  is  brought 
about  by  some  inscrutable  generative  force  in  the  existing  situation. 
The  movement  of  art  from  a  centre  has  been  likened  to  the  circles  on  a. 
pond  made  by  throwing  a  stone  into  the  water.  A  fairer  com- 
parison would  be  with  the  countless  circles  made  by  a  shower 
of  rain.  Where  the  shower  is  heaviest,  the  circles  are  thickest, 
but  wherever  a  drop  falls,  it  starts  a  ring,  which  threads  its  way 
through  the  others  and  makes  its  own  impression  on  the  whole 
surface.  This  simile  applies  better,  no  doubt,  to  advanced  civiliza- 
tions, in  which  communication  is  easy  and  rapid,  than  to  those  of 
primitive  times;  but  even  for  the  bronze  and  earlier  ages,  it  has  its 
application. 

In  no  country  in  the  world  were  the  early  bronze  industries 
carried  to  greater  perfection  than  in  our  own.  The  deposits  of 
copper  and  tin,  especially  of  the  latter,  were  rich  and  accessible, 
and  with  the  first  invasion  of  the  Celts,  if  not  before,  they  fell  into 
the  hands  of  a  race  which  exploited  them  to  the  best  advantage. 

Who  were  the  Celts  ? 

The  Celts  were  a  warlike  race  of  tall,  powerful  men,  with  fair 
skins,  blue  eyes,  and  fair  hair  tending  toward  red.  They  were 
variously  called,  by  Greek  and  Roman  writers,  Celtae  (k€Xt6i), 
Galatae  (yaXdrai),  and  Galli  (ydWoi).  These  names  were  originally 
given  to  all  the  races  of  Western  Europe,  north  of  the  Alps,  who 
were  not  Iberian  or  Ligurian.  It  was  not  until  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar 
that  the  name  Celtae,  or  Galli,  was  restricted  to  the  peoples  inhabit- 
ing the  country  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Pyrenees.  Their  original 
home — using  the  adjective  with  its  necessary  limitations — appears  to 
have  been  the  upper  valley  of  the  Danube  and  that  of  the  Rhone, 
and  the  district  between  the  two.  In  the  fourth  century  B.C.  these 
Celts,  Galli,  or  Gauls,  temporarily  conquered  much  of  Italy  and 
captured  Rome  itself,  under  Brennus.  A  century  later  they  sacked 
the  temples  of  Delphi.  They  colonized  and  gave  their  name 
to  Galatia,  in  Asia  Minor,  and  they  overran  the  greater  part  of 
what  we  now  call  France.     In  their  progress  westward  and  north- 

3  B  2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


ward,  they  partly  drove  the  earher  Iberian  populations  before  them, 
partly  mixed  with  them,  losing  to  some  slight  extent  the  saliency  of 
their  own  characteristics  in  the  process. 

The  first  mention  of  the  Celts  in  history  is  by  Hecataeus  of  Miletus 
(circa  500  B.C.),  who  incidentally  alludes  to  Marseilles  as  a  Ligurian 
city  in  their  neighborhood.^  They  are  mentioned  too  by  various 
other  early  writers,  but  only  in  a  vague  and  unsatisfactory  way,  and 
it  is  not  until  we  come  down  to  Polybius  (204  B.C.- 122)  that  we 
get  much  definite  information  about  them.  From  him,  who  appears 
to  have  been  one  of  the  first  to  use  the  name  Galati,  we  learn  that 
the  Italian  Celts,  the  inhabitants  of  Transalpine  and  Cisalpine  Gaul, 
came   from   the   valley   of    the    Danube;    that    the   Cisalpine   Celts 

were  an  agricultural  race, 
living  in  considerable  ease 
and  luxury;  and  that 
their  Transalpine  cousins 
were  migratory,  warlike, 
and  ready  to  settle  on  any 
promising  lands  their 
swords  could  win. 

According  to  the  now 
accepted  theory,  the  aborig- 
inal inhabitants  of  Britain, 
partly  displaced,  partly  ab- 
sorbed, by  the  Celts,  be- 
longed to  the  widespread 
Iberian  race,  now  represented,  more  or  less  in  its  purity,  by  the 
Basques,  the  South- Western  Irish,  the  non-Celtic  Welsh,  and  other 
small,  dark  races  of  Western  Europe.  The  Celts  came  in  two 
waves.  The  earlier  invaders,  the  Goidels,  are  now  represented 
by  the  Scottish  Highlanders,  the  Celtic  Irish,  and  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Isle  of  Man.  The  second  wave,  of  so-called  Brythonic  Celts, 
came  much  later,  and  overran  most  of  England.  These  Brythonic 
Celts  are  now  represented  by  the  Celtic  Welsh,  the  Cornishmen, 
and  the  Bretons. 

These  two  families  are  sometimes  distinguished  as  the  P  and 
the  Q  Celts  from  a  difference  in  equivalent  words  in  their  languages 
corresponding  to  those  two  consonants.  The  Welsh  use  **  ap,"  for 
instance,  to  mean  "  son  of,"  while  the  Gael  uses  **  mac."  A  broader 
distinction  exists  in  the  fact  that  the  earlier  invaders,  the  Goidels, 


FIG.   4. — GALLERUS  ORATORY,   CO.   KERRY. 


-^  (C.    and   T.    Muellerus,    Fragmenta    Historicorum    Graecorum,   Paris,    1841, 
No.  22.) 

4 


i'ol. 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


were  in  the  Bronze  Age  of  civilization,  while  their  successors,  the 
Brythons,  were  in  the  Iron  Age. 

The  first  three  stages,  then,  of  any  British  civilization  concerned 
with  art,  even  in  its  most  elementary  form,  sprang  from  the  Iberian 

aborigines  in  their  late  neolithic  or 
early  Bronze  period,  illustrated 
by  Stonehenge ;  from  the  Goidelic 
Celts  in  their  Bronze  stage  ;  and 
from  the  Brythonic  Celts,  in  their 
age  of  Iron. 

Art,  in  the  Bronze  Age,  found 
an  outlet  in  the  beautiful  forms 
of  such  utilitarian  objects  as  did 
not  by  their  very  nature  repel 
the  aesthetic  impulse.  Swords, 
spears,  shields,  bracelets,  helmets, 
brooches,  neck  ornaments,  etc., 
were  decorated  by  various  combinations  of  lines  and  curves,  some- 
times engraved,  sometimes  beaten  up  from  behind.  Many  objects 
so  ornamented  are  so  exquisite  in  proportion  and  in  the  rhythm 
of  their  lines  that  they  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  carried  their 
own  system  of  decoration  to  a  point  beyond  which  it  could  not  go. 
During  the  last  twenty  years  we  have  seen  the  artistic  principles 
which  governed  the  Celtic  metal-workers  re-adopted  by  some  of  the 
most  gifted  of  living  artists,  with  all  the  resources  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion at  their  command.  But  nothing  they  have  done  excels  in  beauty 
or  artistic  judgment  the  better  things  left 
by  the  earliest  of  our  Celtic  forefathers. 
As  an  example,  the  gold  torque,  so  long 
disputed  between  the  British  Museum 
and  the  Museum  at  Dublin,  may  be 
named.  It  is,  however,  only  one  among 
a  mass  of  objects  in  which  similar  motives 
are  used  with  the  finest  judgment  and 
skill.  Provincial  museums  all  over  the 
United  Kingdom  possess  fragments  in 
which  these  simple  elements  of  decoration 
are  employed  with  extraordinary  felicity. 
Archaeologists  have  expressed  their 
surprise  that  so  consummate  an  art 
could  be  so  widespread,  and  exist  so  long,  without  develop- 
ing   into    something    higher,    or    at    least    more    ambitious.      The 

^        OF  THE      '^K 

UNIVERSITY 


FIG.   6.- 


-GOLD   TORQUE  FROM 
LIMAVADY. 


(Dublin  Museum.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


absence  of  any  attempt  to  reproduce  natural  objects,  or  imitate  the 
appearance  of  men  and  animals,  has  sometimes  been  held  to  prove 
that  the  early  Celtic  artist  was  only  half  awake,  that  he  was  waiting 
to  be  stirred  to  a  fuller  ambition  by  example  from  without.  M. 
Reinach  says  **  the  decoration  is  invariably  and  exclusively  linear,  as 

if  some  religious  law,  some  fear  of 
maleficent  sorcery,  had  forbidden  the 
representation  of  men  and  animals."^ 
It  is  impossible  to  say  that  this  was  not 
so.  We  know  how  great  an  effect 
such  a  taboo  had  on  the  not  entirely 
dissimilar  art  of  the  Saracens,  many 
centuries  later.  But  a  possibility  sug- 
gested by  the  differential  quality  of 
Celtic  art,  from  the  earliest  times 
down  to  this  present  moment,  must  also 
be  taken  into  consideration.  And  that 
brings  me  to  one  of  the  ideas  on  which 
the  views  expressed  in  the  following 
chapters  will  be  found  to  depend. 

The  Celtic,  or  Gallic,  note  in 
art  is  form:  not  the  imitation  or 
idealization  of  external  forms,  but 
the  form  of  the  work  of  art  itself. 
The  simplest  constituent  of  form  is  line,  and  on  that  foundation  the 
Celt  works,  making  it  the  essential  element  of  his  conceptions.  He 
alone,  among  European  races,  has  developed  the  expressive  value 
of  line  to  the  uttermost,  sometimes  even  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
other  vehicles  for  aesthetic  emotion.  In  painting,  a  sense  of  line 
leads  to  the  qualities  we  call  design,  composition,  rhythm.  In 
sculpture  it  is  the  foundation  of  all  harmony,  although,  in  the 
narrowest  sense,  it  scarcely  exists  in  a  statue  at  all.  In  architecture 
as  an  art,  its  place  is  more  important  still,  for  there  its  absence 
cannot  be  so  readily  masked  by  the  presence  of  other  virtues.  Now, 
in  a  race  endowed  with  a  propensity  toward  creation  in  line,  we 
should  not  expect  to  find  much  interest  in  natural  forms,  as  artistic 
material,  until  a  comparatively  late  period  of  development.  The 
simple  aspects  of  line,  and  those  combinations  of  their  simple  aspects 
^vhich  can  be  so  very  far  from  simple,  would  be  exhausted  before 
ihe  Celtic  artist  would  feel  any  inducement  to  go  farther,  and 
complicate   his   task   by    the   introduction   of    realistic   imitations   of 


FIG.    7.— KILCRONEY,    IRELAND. 


Apollo 


English  Eldition,  p.  1  I .  Heinemann,  1 907. 

6 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


external  objects.  The  Celt,  Gaul  or  Gael,  felt,  and  feels  to  this  day, 
comparatively  little  interest  in  the  objective  imitation  of  things  out- 
side himself.  His  blood  was  not  in  the  veins  of  the  reindeer 
hunters  !  Men,  animals,  vegetables,  were  treated  by  him  as  mere 
sources  of  suggestion  for  his  linear  patterns,  until  his  skill  became  so 
advanced  that  he  could  combine  objective  truth  with  that  subjective 
expression  which  was  his  real  motive.  It  is,  in  short,  by  this  sense  of 
line  and  all  its  derivatives,  that  the  Celtic  spirit  in  art  can  be  traced 
from  its  birth  down  to  the  present  day,  setting  the  architecture, 
sculpture,  painting,  even  literature,  of  the  Celts  apart  from  those  of 
other  races:  apart,  even,  from  those  of  the  Greeks,  to  whom  the 
approach  is  nearest. 

The  remains  of  Celtic  art  during  the  Bronze  Age,  discovered 
in  these  islands,  are  of  the  same  nature  as  the  debris  of  early  civiliza- 
tions found  elsewhere.  They  consist  of  carved  stones  and  rocks, 
tomb  furniture,  debris  from  inhabited  sites,  hoards,  and  isolated 
objects  lost  by  their  owners.  They  are  decorated  in  combinations  of 
straight  and  curved  lines,  which  have  been 
grouped  under  various  heads,  such  as  the 
chevron,  the  spiral,  the  swastika,  the  loop, 
the  winding  band,  and  concentric  circles.^ 
A  large  number  of  the  best  examples  have 
been  found  in  Ireland,  which  country  was 
at  one  time  thought  to  be  the  birthplace  of 
some  of  their  most  characteristic  motives. 
This  is  now  understood  to  be  an  ill-founded 
belief,  for  earlier  examples  of  these  sup- 
posed-to-be Irish  forms  have  been  dis- 
covered elsewhere.  Ireland,  however,  can 
show  the  most  important  surviving  speci- 
mens in  not  a  few  classes  of  Celtic  Art ; 
among  them  that  of  sculptured  stones. 
The  tumuli  of  County  Meath,  at  New 
Grange,  near  Drogheda,  and  at  Sliath  na 
Calliaghe,  near  Oldcastle,  contain  the  most 
remarkable  specimens  yet  discovered.  But 
it  is  not  improbable  that  these  structures 
are  the  outcome  of  a  mingling  of  blood  and  ideas  between  the 
Bronze  Age  Celts  and  the  neolithic  Iberians  whom  they  conquered. 

The   prevailing   motives    in    the   decoration   of   these   tumuli   are, 
at  New  Grange,  the  spiral,  complicated  by  dots,  diagonal  lines,  and 


FIG.   8. — HIGH     CROSS,    MONAS- 
TERBOICE,    IRELAND. 


1  See  Romilly  Allen,  Celtic  Art 


Pagan  and  Christian  Times  (Methuen,   1904). 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    Q. — CELTIC   SHIELD. 

(British  Museum.) 


various  combinations  of  the  chevron  ;  at  Old- 
castle,  similar  motives  combined  with  star  and 
wheel-shaped  patterns. 

The  spiral,  which  does  not  occur  in  this 
country  on  the  implements  and  portable  ob- 
jects of  the  Bronze  Age,  seems  to  have  had 
its  birth  in  Egypt,  whence  it  travelled  by  way 
of  North-Eastern  Europe,  through  Scandinavia, 
to  Scotland,  North  England,  and  Ireland.  It 
is,  however,  such  an  obvious  way  of  decorating 
a  surface  that  too  much  stress  must  not  be  laid 
on  any  theory  of  its  affiliation.  It  was  a  favorite 
motive  with  the  Maoris,  who  can  hardly  have 
borrowed  it  either  from  Egypt,  from  Mycenae, 
or  from  the  ancient  Celts. 

The  decorative  motives  of  Celtic  art  in 
the   Bronze   Age  may,  then,  be   catalogued   as 

follows  :     diagonal    lines,    leading    to    various    combinations   of    the 

chevron  ;  punched  dots  ;  the  loop  and  its  combinations  (swastika)  ; 

and  the  spiral. 

The    civilization    of    the    Iron    Age    was    probably  brought  into 

this  country  by  the  Brythonic  Celts  in  the  third  century  B.C.      The 

objects  on  which  our  knowledge  of  its  character  depends  may  be 

classified     similarly    to    the    remains   of    the    previous    civilization. 

They  consist  of   grave  goods,   as   they  have  been  called,   remains 

found    on    village   or    town    sites,    hoards,    and 

objects  casually  lost. 

The     burial     customs     of     this     late     Celtic 

period    differ   from  those   of    the  Bronze   Age  ; 

they  also  show  considerable  change  as  the  age 

progressed.      Among    the    earliest    tombs,   prob- 
ably,  yet    discovered    are    the    mounds    on   the 

Yorkshire  Wolds,    near   Arras.     One   of    these, 

when   opened,  was   found   to   contain   a  female 

skeleton,   with    a    number    of    glass    beads,   two 

bracelets,  gold  and  amber  rings,  and  a  pair  of 

tweezers.     In   another   was   found    the   body   of 

a  man,  lying  on  his  back,  with  his  chariot,  the 

remains  of  two  horses  completely  harnessed,  and 

of  two  wild  boars,  beside  him.     A  third  barrow 

yielded  the   skeleton   of    a    warrior,    with    parts 

of  a  shield,  of  a   chariot,  and  of   the  furniture 

8 


FIG.  lO. — CELTIC   FIBULA. 

(British  Museum.) 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


FIG.    II. — BRONZE   COLLAR 
FROM   WRAXALL. 

(Bristol  Museum.) 


ot  a  pair  of  horses,  as  well  as  the  tusks  of  a  wild  boar.  The 
wild  boar  is  alluded  to  in  many  ways  on  the  remains  of  this 
period.  Canon  Greenwell's  Yorkshire  ex- 
cavations have  also  been  prolific  in  illustra- 
tions of  this  age.  In  one  barrow,  at  Arras, 
he  found  a  female  skeleton  buried  with  two 
pigs,  an  iron  mirror,  and  the  remains  of  a 
chariot.  But  perhaps  the  most  valuable  dis- 
covery, from  the  point  of  view  of  art,  has 
been  that  made  in  1879,  on  the  Cotswolds, 
some  seven  miles  from  Gloucester.  During 
repairs  to  a  road  near  Birdlip,  three  skeletons, 
two  male  and  one  female,  were  found  in 
graves  constructed  of  thin  slabs  of  stone 
arranged     coffin-wise.       With     the     woman 

were  found  a  bronze  bowl,  a  silver  brooch  plated  with  gold, 
a  bead  necklace,  a  hollow  brass  armlet  and  key  handle,  a  bronze 
knife  handle  with  the  head  of  a  horned  animal  as  ornament,  and 
the  beautiful  bronze  mirror  here  illustrated.  An  equally  beautiful 
mirror,  of  exactly  the  same  kind,  has  recently  (September,  1 908)  been 
found  during  some  excavations  at  Desborough,  Northamptonshire. 
Similar  though  less  important  finds  have  taken  place  in  Derbyshire, 
Staffordshire,  Devonshire,  Cornwall,  and,  in  the  east,  in  Kent.  But 
the  number  of  tombs  from  the  early  Iron  or  Late-Celtic  Age  is  small 
compared  with  those  from  the  Bronze  and  Stone  Ages,  which  seems  to 
show  that  only  a  short  period  elapsed  between  the  introduction  of  iron 
by  the  Brythonic  Celts  and  the  first  appearance  of 
the  Romans  in  Britain. 

An  important  series  of  discoveries  was  made 
in  1886,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Aylesford, 
in  Kent.  Here  many  urns  and  other  objects 
were  dug  up,  which  showed  the  connection 
between  the  art  of  Britain  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Iron  Age  and  that  of  the  Continent,  and 
proved  the  intercourse  between  this  country 
and  Southern  Europe,  in  pre-Roman  times,  to 
have  been  closer  than  had  previously  been 
suspected. 

From   remains   found   on  the  sites  of  villages 

or  towns,  we  know  the  late  Celtic  inhabitants  to 

have    been    well    versed   in    the   arts   of   peace. 

Among    the    objects    found    have    been    sword 

9 


FIG.    12. — HANDLE   OF 
CELTIC   TANKARD. 

(Mayer  Museum, 
Liverpool.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    13. — MIRROR,   FROM   BIRDLIP, 
GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

(Photo  lent  by  Mr.  Dugdale.) 


sheaths,  fibulae,  saws,  knives,  quern- 
stones,  spindle-whorls,  weaving-combs, 
bill-hooks,  pottery,  and  coins.  The 
earliest  British  coinage  belongs  to  the 
Iron  Age,  and  dates  from  about 
200-150  B.C.  Its  use  is  believed  to 
have  been  confined  to  that  part  of 
England  which  lies  south  of  the  Tyne 
and  east  of  the  Severn. 

It  will  be  well  to  conclude  this 
short  summary  of  the  nature  of  late 
Celtic  art  by  saying  a  few  words  on 
the  best  specimens  in  each  class. 

The  finest  bronze  shield  yet  dis- 
covered is  one  that  came  out  of  the 
Thames,  at  Battersea  ;  it  is  now  in 
the  British  Museum.  The  dagger, 
with  bronze  hilt  and  sheath,  found  in 
the  river  Witham,  near  Lincoln,  is  probably  the  best  specimen 
of  its  class.  As  for  helmets,  which  are  rare,  the  British  Museum 
has  a  fine  specimen,  rescued  from  the  Thames,  and  another  is  at 
Abbotsford.  The  latter  came  from  Torrs,  Kirkcudbrightshire. 
Among  the  very  numerous  finds  of  horse  furniture,  four  bridle-bits 
with  elaborate  ornamentation  belong  to  the  British,  the  Edinburgh, 
and  the  Dublin  Museums. 

Among  personal  ornaments,  which  play  such  an  important  part 
in  our  materials  for  the  study  of  Celtic  art,  the  most  important 
are  fibulae,  torques  or  collars,  and 
armlets.  The  number  of  such  ob- 
jects in  our  museums  is  very  great, 
and,  within  their  own  clearly  de- 
fined limits,  they  show  an  astonish- 
ing variety  of  form.  The  finest 
thing  of  the  kind  is  the  gold  collar, 
already  mentioned,  in  the  Dublin 
Museum.  In  simple  beauty  and 
in  the  skill  of  its  execution  it  could 
scarcely  be  excelled.  Other  fine 
collars,  of  somewhat  different  char- 
acter, are  the  bronze  one  from 
Wraxall,  in  the  Bristol  Museum, 
and,  a  third,  also  of  bronze,  in  the 

10 


FIG.    14. — CELTIC   DISK. 

(British  Museum.) 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


British    Museum.     This    last    was   found    in    Lochar    Moss,    Dum- 
friesshire.    A   good   specimen  of   the   bronze   armlets  is  one  found 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Forres,  now  at 
Altyre.     The  fibulae  are  very  numerous. 

Objects  of  domestic  use  from  the 
same  period  are  often  ornamented,  but 
the  ornament  is  of  the  same  character 
as  that  already  illustrated,  and  need 
not  be  referred  to  in  detail. 

There  is,  however,  one  form  of 
Celtic  art  from  this  middle  period 
which  must  be  referred  to  here,  namely 
that  of  enamelling.  This  was  practised 
by  the  Celts  of  the  Iron  Age  before 
the  advent  of  the  Romans,  and  carried 
to  such  a  pitch  of  perfection  that 
nothing  quite  equal  to  its  products  has 
yet    been    encountered    on    Continenta 


FIG.    15. — FOOT  OF  THE 
ARDAGH  CHALICE. 

(Dublin  Museum.) 


Sir 
the 


Europe.  The  late 
Augustus  Franks  gave  the  name  of  Opus  Britannicum  to 
enamels  of  the  British  Celts,  and  believed  them  to  be  the  first 
west-European  enamels.  The  fragment  reproduced  in  Chapter 
XII  is  thoroughly  characteristic.  To  these  early  Celtic  enamellers 
belongs  the  credit  once  given  to  the  Irish  Scribes  of  a  later  age, 
of  having  invented  the  famous  pattern  of  the  divergent  spiral. 

In  all  this  activity  the  general  characteristics  never  vary. 
From  first  to  last  Celtic  art  depended 
on  line  for  its  unit,  on  the  nature 
of  the  material  for  its  determinant, 
and  on  free  invention  for  its  expressive 
value.  The  Celt  was  not  inquisitive. 
His  desire  was  not  for  knowledge,  but 
for  creation.  He  wished  to  produce 
rather  than  to  reproduce.  In  a  word,  he 
was  synthetic  rather  than  analytic.  The 
possibility  has  often  been  suggested,  or 
rather  it  inevitably  suggests  itself,  that 
the  character  of  the  Iberian  races,  partly 
dispossessed  and  partly  absorbed  by  the 
Celt,  counted  for  something  in  the  form 
taken  by  his  art.  In  view,  however,  of 
the  homogeneity  of  the  Celtic  idea  wher- 
ever we  find  it,  from  its  first  mutterings 
II 


FIG.    16. CROZIER. 

(Dublin  Museum.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


to  its  last  and  most  ambitious  achievements,  we  cannot  believe  that 
the  example  of  an  inferior  race  had  very  much  effect  upon  it. 

While  Celtic  art  was  being  lost  in  Great  Britain  under  the  stress 
of  the  Roman  Conquest,  it  was  holding  the  even  tenor  of  its  way  in 
Ireland,  and  piling  up  those  accumulations  which,  in  their  ruin,  have 
left  that  island  so  much  richer  in  the  debris  of  early  Celtic  civilization 
than  the  rest  of  the  world.  So  far  as  these  belong  to  the  pre- 
Christian  Era,  however,  they  do  not  call  for  any  more  detailed 
notice  than  has  already  been  given.  They  show  that  the  motives 
common  in  the  neighboring  island  during  the  late  Bronze  and  pre- 
Roman  Iron  Age  held  the  field  in  Ireland  too.  There,  however, 
owing  to  the  longer  survival  of  the  Celtic 

t  monopoly,  they  developed  a  boldness 
and  self-confidence  hardly  equalled  else- 
where. Of  this  boldness — not  always 
leading  to  beauty — a  Bronze  Disk, 
British  Museum  (Fig.  14),  and  a  crowd 
of  objects  in  the  Dublin  Museum  are 
examples. 
Christianity  was  brought  to  these 
islands  about  the  end  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury or  beginning  of  the  fifth.  It  made 
its  way  from  Western  Gaul  into  Corn- 
wall, Wales,  and  the  South -Western 
corner  of  Scotland.  From  Wigtown- 
shire it  crossed  into  Ireland  about  430 
, I  A.D  In  Ireland  it  prospered  so  ex- 
ceedingly that,  before  many  generations 
had  elapsed,  that  island  was  sending 
"  return  waves  of  Celtic  Christianity  " 
at  lona,  and  the  East  of  England,  at 
Lindisfarne.  But  the  new  religion  endured  for  centuries  before  it 
began  to  create  any  form  of  art  which  could  be  called  distinctively 
Christian.  And  in  Ireland,  when  these  forms  came,  they  did  not 
supersede  Pagan  ideals,  they  were  grafted  upon  them.  Hence  we 
have  a  continuity  in  Irish  decorative  art  down  to  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century  which  does  not  exist  elsewhere  to  anything 
like  the  same  extent. 

The  arts  in  which  the  Celtic  Christians  of  Ireland  excelled  were 
stonecutting,  metal-work,  the  writing  and  illumination  of  manuscripts, 
and  architecture.  The  most  important  things  left  to  us  by  the  Irish 
stonecutters,  or  sculptors,  are   the  so-called  High  Crosses,  of  which 

12 


FIG.    17.— CROSS  OF  CONG. 

(Dublin  Museum.) 

to   the   West   of   Scotland, 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


two  at  Monasterboice,  two  at  Clonmacnoise,  and  one  each  at 
Durrow  and  Tuam,  are  the  most  important.  The  art  of  these 
crosses  corresponds  exactly,  taking  the 
difference  of  material  into  account,  with 
that  of  the  metal-workers.  The  motives 
are  essentially  Celtic,  depending  always  on 
line  and  a  devoted  search  into  all  its  pos- 
sibilities. Down  to  the  very  end  the  spirit 
of  representation  is  never  found  except 
under  the  strictest  control.  Figure  sculp- 
ture exists,  of  course,  and  in  some  in- 
stances, as  on  the  Cross  of  Muirdach  at 
Monasterboice,  and  on  the  Tuam  cross,  it 
is  even  fairly  advanced.  But  it  is  always 
ornament,  and  the  scenes  are  treated  in 
such  a  way  as  to  remain  complementary 
to  the  purely  decorative   panels,  and  are 

not  allowed    to    become   extraneous   and  ^^^  ,8._shrine  of  st.  Patricks 
self-contained.  bell. 

It   is    the   same  with  works   in    metal:  (Dublin  Museum.) 

The  early  motives  are  gradually  enriched 

and  added  to  by  importations  from  without 
as  well  as  by  the  developed  ingenuity  of 
the  native  artist.  But  down  to  the  end, 
down  to  that  Cross  of  Cong  which  is  the 
supreme  expression  of  the  school,  the 
essential  character  of  Celtic  ornament  re- 
mains the  same.  The  Celtic  artist  under- 
stands, or  rather  feels,  that  form  and  the 
play  of  line  supply  him  with  a  language 
suited  not  only  to  his  ideas  but  to  the 
materials  in  which  those  ideas  have  to  be 
expressed.  When  he  uses  figures  he 
makes  them  the  vehicle  for  linear  patterns 
and  is  never  tempted  to  let  them  be 
dramatic  externally. 

Again     the     same     story     has     to     be 

told  when  we   come   to   the  manuscripts. 

No   Celtic   manuscript  with   illuminations 

or  ornaments  of  any  kind  can  be  ascribed 

to   a  date  earlier  than  about  630  A.D.       The  book  of  Kells,   the 

most  famous  of  them  all,   is  distinguished  by  the  ambition  of    its 

13 


riG.  10.  — INTFRLACED  ORNAMENT 
FROM  THE  BOOK  OF  DURROW. 

(Trinity  College,  Dublin.) 
(Photo  by  Lawrence.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    20. — FIGURES  ON  THE   SHRINE  OF 
ST.  MAGWE. 


designer  as  well  as  by  his  extraordinary  skill  in  execution.     But  its 
motives   form   a    resume  of  all    that   Celtic   art   had    accomplished 

down  to  that  moment,  rather  than  a 
step  in  advance.  Natural  objects 
are,  indeed,  introduced,  but  always  in 
a  form  so  conventionalized  that  they 
become  linear  motives  like  the  rest. 
Another  manuscript,  the  Book  of 
Durrow,  shows  a  more  restrained 
taste  than  its  more  famous  rival.  A 
third,  **  The  Book  of  Armagh,"  is 
still  finer  in  a  quiet  way.  It  dates 
from  about  840  A.D. 

In  architecture  the  Irish  Celt 
showed  the  same  qualities  as  in  the 
other  arts.  His  structures  are  by  no 
means  ambitious,  but  his  designs  never 
fail  to  have  that  appropriateness  to 
material  and  purpose  which  betrays 
an  essentially  artistic  race.  The 
earliest  buildings  of  which  remains  exist  are  the  stone  forts,  or 
duns,  which  are  to  be  found  in  considerable  numbers  in  the 
counties  of  Kerry,  Clare,  Galway,  Mayo,  Sligo,  Donegal  and 
Antrim.  These  are  stone  enclosures,  in  which  the  Cyclopean 
masonry  is  often  of  remarkable  excellence.  They  contain  chambers 
in  their  walls,  as  well  as  small  domical,  beehive,  or  boat-shaped 
huts  in  the  space  these  walls  enclose.  The  earliest  Christian 
monasteries  and  oratories  are  but  slight  developments  from  these 
forts  and  huts.  The  most  remarkable  specimen  of  the  former 
is  the  monastery  on  Skellig  Michael,  an  isolated  rock  in  the 
Atlantic,  twelve  miles  off  the  coast  of  Kerry.  The  monastery 
occupies  a  plateau,  some  seven  hundred  feet  above  the  sea, 
approached  by  many  hundreds  of  steps  cut  in  the  rock.  The 
plateau  is  about  180  feet  long  by  about  100  feet  wide.  Upon  it 
are  the  remains  of  three  oratories,  six  bee-hive  cells,  two  wells,  live 
burial  grounds,  and  many  rude  stone  crosses. 

The  best  isolated  specimen  of  the  early  Irish  oratory  is  that  of 
Gallerus  (Fig.  4).  It  stands,  in  strangely  perfect  preservation,  on 
the  north  side  of  Dingle  Bay,  co.  Kerry. 

Between  the  sixth  and  eighth  centuries  building  in  un-dressed 
stones  with  dry  joints  was  gradually  superseded  by  the  use  of  mortar 
and  dressed  stone,  and  this  naturally  brought  in  its  train  forms  which 

14 


PRIMITIVE  ART  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


may  be  fairly  called  architectural.  During  the  period  under  discus- 
sion these  forms  were  confined  chiefly  to  doorways,  although  occa- 
sionally a  window  shows  the  beginnings  of 
aesthetic  ambition.  Two  characteristic  door- 
ways are  figured  here.  The  buildings  in 
which  these  occur  are  almost  invariably 
distinguished  by  good  proportions,  in  the 
relations  of  parts  to  the  whole. 

Among  the  latest  examples  of  the  early 
period  of  Irish  architecture  must  be  included 
the  first  of  those  round  towers  which  are 
such  a  characteristic  feature,  although  they 
are  by  no  means  so  exclusively  Irish  as  we 
are  apt  to  believe.  The  early  specimens 
are  built  of  un-dressed  stones,  roughly 
coursed,  the  joints  filled  in  with  small  stones 
and  coarse  mortar.  The  only  architectural 
leaven  they  show  is  that  of  general  propor- 
tion. Any  discussion  of  their  purpose  is 
outside  the  scope  of  this  handbook;  but  it 
may  be  remarked,  in  passing,  that  those 
who  see  in  them  towers  of  refuge  against 
the  attacks  of  the  Norse  pirates  seem  to 
have  established  their  case.     At  the  begin-  •- 

ning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  remains  of  1  1 8  of  these  towers 
still  existed  in  Ireland.  Outside  Ireland  22  have  been  catalogued,  of 
which   the  best   known,  perhaps,   is  that    at  Brechin,   in   Scotland 

(Fig.  21). 


r 

■■BMBiy 

FIG.    21. — ROUND   TOWER, 
BRECHIN, 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  TO  CHAPTER  I. 

Cartailhac  and  Breuil,  Altamira  (rAnthropologie,  1904,  p.  625).  Montelius,  O.,  Chronologic 
der  Aeltesten  Bronzezeit,  Brunswick,  1900.  Hoemes,  M.,  Urgeschichte  der  Bildenden  Kunst 
in  Europa,  Vienna,  1898.  Romilly  Allen,  J.,  Celtic  Art  in  Pagan  and  Christian  Times, 
London,  1904;  Early  Christian  S])mbolism  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland ;  Early  Christian 
Monuments  in  Scotland;  Celtic  Illuminatrve  Art  (reproductions),  Dublin.  Stokes,  Margaret, 
Early  Christian  Art  in  Ireland,  1887.  To  be  used  with  caution.  It  is  twenty  years  old. 
Smith,  Reginald  A.,  and  Read,  Charles  H.,  Guide  to  the  Antiquities  of  the  Early  Iron  Age 
in  the  British  Museum,  1903.  Read,  Charles  H.,  Guide  to  the  Antiquities  of  the  Bronze  Age  in 
the  British  Museum,  1904.  Anderson  J.,  Scotland  in  Pagan  and  Early  Christian  Times. 
Westwood,  Paloeographia  Pictorica  Sacra;  Miniatures  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Irish  MSS. 
Middleton,  J.  H.,  Illuminated  Manuscripts  in  Classical  and  Mediaeval  Times,  Cambridge, 
1892.  Hill,  A.,  Ancient  Irish  Architecture,  1870.  Petrie,  G.,  Ecclesiastical  Architecture  of 
Ireland,  1845.  Stokes,  Margaret,  The  High  Crosses  of  Castledermot  and  Durrow,  1898. 
Wilde,  Sir  W.  R.  W.,  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  the  Antiquities  of  Gold  in  the  Museum  of  the 
R,  Irish  Academy,  1862, 


15 


riG.    22. — CHRIST   CHURCH    CATHEDRAL,    OXFORD. 


CHAPTER  II 


ANGLO-SAXON  ART 


The  direct  influence  of  the  Roman  invaders  on  the  course  of  art  in 
the  British  Isles  was  so  evanescent,  and  its  resuhs  so  essentially 
outside  any  true  racial  movement,  that  we  need  here  only  note 
its  existence  and  pass  on.  British  art  may  be  divided  into  three  parts: 
Celtic,  Saxon,  and  the  art  which  sprang  from  the  blending  of  these 
two  races  and  their  union  with  the  new  blood  from  Northern  France. 
Celtic  art  has  been  already  dealt  with:  the  present  chapter  will  be 
devoted  to  those  Saxon  forms  which  followed  it  in  Britain  and  co- 
existed with  its  later  glory  in  Ireland. 

Our  chief  authorities  for  Saxon  art  are  architectural  remains.  At 
one  time  it  was  believed  that  the  Saxons  built  almost  entirely  in  wood 
and,  consequently,  that  stone  witnesses  to  their  ambition  as  builders 
were  few  and  unimportant.  Recent  and  more  careful  research  has 
led  to  a  somewhat  drastic  revision  of  that  belief.  Evidence  of  a 
Saxon  origin  has  been  discovered  in  many  buildings  which  used  to  be 
classed  as  Romano-British  and  Norman,  and  sufficient  material  has 
now  been  gathered  to  enable  a  trustworthy  opinion  to  be  formed  of 
the  powers  and  peculiarities  of  the  Saxon  architect.  If  we  took  our 
courage  in  both  hands  and  applied  to  Anglo-Saxon  art  the  principles 
we  assert  in  connection  with  Continental  art,  we  might  even  venture 

16 


ANGLO-SAXON  ART 

to  surmise  that  the  special  features  of  Norman  Round  Arched  Gothic 
were,  in  many  cases,  the  resuhs  of  contact  between  romanesque 
forms  from  the  South  and  East  with  the  Enghsh  civiHzation  of  the 
North-West. 

The  remains  of  Saxon  architecture  are  almost  entirely  ecclesias- 
tical. Their  distribution  shows  little  of  that  affiliation  with  the 
previous  Roman  organization  which  we  find  in  Gaul.  In  Gaul  the 
Christian  dioceses  correspond  with  the  ancient  Roman  civitates,  and 
the  cathedral  cities  with  the  chief  centres  of  each  civitas.  It  was 
not  so  in  Britain.  There  the  distribution  of  the  primitive  churches 
was  in  great  part  disregarded  by  the  Teutonic  invaders,  who  often 
established  their  sees  at  unimportant  centres  of  population,  such  as 
Crediton,  Ramsbury,  St.  Germans,  Wells,  and  Lichfield.  "  What- 
ever the  Saxons  did  or  did  not  do,"  says  Professor  Baldwin  Brown, 
"  to  the  Roman  towns,  they  put  them  out  of  relation  to  the  ecclesias- 
tical system."  This  fact  supplies  an  additional  reason  for  accepting 
the  foundation  of  the  Saxon  church  as  a  new  starting-point  in 
tracing  the  history  of  British  Art. 

The  earliest  Teutonic  invaders  found  Romano-British  Christianity 
established  in  the  country.  They  destroyed  it  over  the  whole  of 
the  territory  they  occupied,  pushing  it  into  the  west  and  north. 
There  it  came  into  closer  contact  than  before  with  the  Celtic 
Christianity  of  Cornwall,  Ireland,  and  Scotland,  and  was  gradually 
solidified  into  a  Christian  system  which  finally  had  its  centre  at  a 
point  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  the  shadow  of  Saxon  invasion. 

Meanwhile,  toward  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  the  Saxons 
themselves  began  to  adopt  Christianity,  and  to  follow  its  customs. 
Their  early  churches,  which  have  now  to  be  studied  chiefly  in  their 
foundations,  show,  as  might  have  been  expected,  strong  though  pass- 
ing evidence  of  being  simply  modifications  of  Roman  buildings. 
At  Silchester  the  foundations  have  been  traced  of  a  small  Basilican 
structure  which  was  probably  a  Christian  church.  Saxon  building 
was,  then,  affected  for  a  short  time  by  Roman  example  as  well  as 
by  Celtic  tradition.  It  cannot,  however,  be  denied  that  it  soon 
developed  a  character  of  its  own,  which  marked  almost  the  whole 
of  the  period  of  nearly  five  centuries  over  which  it  extended. 

The  space  at  my  command  is  insufficient  for  a  detailed  notice  of 
the  various  stages  of  Saxon  architecture.  I  must  be  content  with  a 
general  description  of  its  character,  and  a  short  account  of  its  most 
important  monuments. 

When  compared  with  the  Celt,  the  Saxon  was  poor  in  aesthetic 
gifts  and  inclinations.     He  had  little  sense  of  the  congruity  into  which 

17  c 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


the  material,  form,  decoration,  and  use  of  an  object  should  be 
brought.  His  sense  of  proportion,  too,  of  the  mathematical  element 
in  art,  was  rudimentary;  and  he  was  almost  entirely  devoid  of  that 
power  to  play  happily  with  line  which  made  the  Celt  an  artist 
almost  from  the  earliest  moment  to  which  we  can  trace  his 
existence.  Lasdy,  he  was  no  engineer.  He  gives  no  sign  of  being 
alive  to  that  play  of  forces  which  goes  on  in  every  built-up 
structure.  He  is  without  the  Gallic  instinct  for  concentrating  power 
where  it  is  required,  on  the  one  hand,  and  economizing  material 
where  it  has  nothing  to  do  but  enclose,  on  the  other.  His  buildings 
are  like  boxes,  and  the  relation  between  their  shape,  solidity,  and 
purpose,  is  seldom  happy. 

The  earliest  Saxon  structures  were  rough  -  combinations  of  ideas, 
partly  their  own,  partly  Romano-British.     From  this  they  gradually 

passed  to  a  style  made  up  of 
British  traditions,  German 
traditions,  and  echoes  from 
what  was  being  done  on  the 
nearest  part  of  the  European 
Continent.  They  ended  by 
building  in  a  fashion  which 
makes  their  latest  structures 
difficult,  in  these  days,  to  dis- 
entangle from  the  early  works 
of  their  Norman  conquerors. 
How  much  that  similarity  was 
due  to  the  influence  of  Saxon 
over  Norman,  and  how  much  to  that  of  Norman  over  Saxon,  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  decide  as  once  was  supposed.  Professor  Baldwin 
Brown,  the  latest  and  most  thorough  of  writers  on  this  subject, 
gives  a  list  of  about  1 73  English  churches  which  "  exhibit 
remains  of  Saxon  building."  The  list  would  afford  an  opportunity 
for  a  good  deal  of  discussion  were  we  primarily  concerned  with 
archaeology,  but  our  business  being  with  art,  we  need  only  notice 
those  more  important  monuments  which  have  a  definite  artistic  char- 
acter of  their  own. 

It  used  to  be  asserted  that  Saxon  stone  architecture  took  much  of 
its  inspiration  from  a  previous  timber  architecture  which  it  super- 
seded. A  careful  examination  of  the  facts  throws  more  than  doubt 
upon  such  a  theory.  It  may  be  allowed  that  the  Saxons  made  great 
use  of  timber,  which  was  plentiful  in  their  time,  for  domestic  pur- 
poses and  even  for  buildings  of  a  higher  character.     But  it  cannot  be 


r""'''l'  '^rj  ;/•  -^.r^'^  >» 

— -», 

C7^ 

^ 

4 

^""W^J 

■^^'^p^ 

FIG.    23. — BARTON-ON-HUMBER   CHURCH. 


ANGLO-SAXON  ART 


FIG.  24. — TOWER  OF  EARLS 
BARTON  CHURCH,  NORTH- 
AMPTONSHIRE. 


ignored  that  stone  had  been  used  for  many  centuries  in  these  islands 
before  the  Saxon  inroads,  and  had  left  its  own  traditions  and  examples. 
In  a  country  commencing  civilization,  timber 
building  may  hold  a  monopoly  for  ages,  and 
may  hand  on  its  forms  to  the  next  develop- 
ment. But  v^^here  a  stone  architecture  has 
once  flourished,  its  tradition  remains.  The 
Saxon  churches  usually  quoted  as  show^ing 
the  influence  of  timber  construction  are  not 
the  earliest,  but  belong  to  quite  a  late  period 
in  the  style.  The  towers  of  Earls  Barton 
and  Barnack,  in  Northamptonshire,  and  of 
Barton-on-Humber,  in  Lincolnshire,  are  ex- 
amples. They  seem  obviously  inspired  by 
some  form  of  half-timber  construction,  but 
behind  them  lies  a  long  period  of  building 
activity  in  which  no  such  relation  can  be 
traced.  Curiously  enough,  the  one  relic  we 
possess  of  timber  building  in  Saxon  times, 
does  not  belong  to  the  only  system  which  could  have  inspired  the 
designs  quoted  in  support  of  the  theory  that  the  Saxon  builders 
took  their  ideas  from  timber  construction.  The  wooden  church  at 
Greenstead,  Essex,   is  not  a  frame,  or  half-timber  building,  but  a 

**  block-house."  It  is  constructed  of 
the  split  trunks  of  oaks,  set  upright 
and  close  together  on  un  oak  sill.^ 

The  chronology  of  Saxon  churches 
can  be  determined  only  roughly. 
Professor  Baldwin  Brown  divides 
those  which  remain  after  a  drastic 
process  of  elimination  into  five 
periods.  For  our  purposes,  however, 
two  will  be  enough.  The  earlier 
was  distinguished  by  modesty  of 
plan,  by  monotony  in  the  wall  faces, 
by  a  tendency  to  the  box-like  in 
general  construction,  and  by  the  use 
of  Romano-British  forms,  or  actual 
structures,  in  the  ornamental  parts. 
During  the  later  period  a  tendency  to  more  elegance  can  be  perceived. 

^  It  appears  pretty  certain  that  this  Greenstead  church  is  identical  with  a  timber  chapel  erected 
near  Aungre"  (Chipping  Ongar),  for  the  reception  of  St.  Edmund's  body  during  its  transference 
from  London  to  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  in  1013  (Dugdale's  Monasticon.  Ill,  139). 

19  c2 


riG.    25. — GREENSTEAD   CHURCH,    ESSEX. 


debris    from    Romano-British 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


The  solids  and  the  voids  have  a  better  relation  to  each  other,  and  the 
proportions  of  height  to  w^idth  are  more  agreeable.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  earlier  buildings  often  show  a 
Roman  respect  for  solidity  in  the  dangerous 
parts,  w^hich  is  not  so  well  marked  in  the 
later. 

One  of  the  earliest  churches  to  show 
Saxon  characteristics  is  that  of  St.  Pancras, 
at  Canterbury,  the  foundations  of  which 
have  recently  been  laid  bare.  So  far  as 
recovered,  it  consists  of  an  oblong  nave 
about  forty-three  feet  by  twenty-seven,  two 
porches,  at  the  west  end  and  on  the  south, 
and  two  small  fragments  of  wall  suggesting 
that  it  ended  to  the  east  in  a  semi-circular 


FIG.    26. — FONT,   ST.  MARTIN'S, 
CANTERBURY. 


apse. 


Still  more  interesting  are  the  remains  of 
what  Professor  Brown  calls  "quite  the  most  famous  parish  church  in 
the  whole  of  England,"  viz.,  that  of  St.  Martin,  at  Canterbury. 
This  church  now  consists  of  a  very  large,  square  ended,  Saxon 
chancel,  of  a  nave  partly  Saxon,  and  of  a  later  western  tower.  Its 
technique,  like  that  of  St.  Pancras,  is  largely  Roman  and  much 
of  its  material  Roman  brick  re-used.  Among  other  early  examples 
may  be  named  the  churches  of  Stone,  near  Faversham;  of  Cor- 
bridge,  Northumberland;  and  of  Escomb,  Jarrow,  and  Monk- 
wearmouth,  Durham  ;  the  fragments  at  Lyminge,  Rochester,  and 
Reculver,    Kent ;    the    crypts    of    Ripon    and    Hexham,    and    the 

remarkable    church    of    Brix- 

worth,  Northamptonshire. 

Brixworth  is  one  of  the 
most  imposing  of  our  Saxon 
monuments,  although  it  has 
been  considerably  mutilated 
in  the  course  of  time.  Its  side 
aisles,  or  possibly  chapels,  have 
disappeared,  and  many  win- 
dows have  been  introduced. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  gives 
evidence  of  developments  fig.  27.— st.  martin's  church,  canterbury. 
during  its  own  Saxon  period 

which  turn  it  into  a  more  than  usually  valuable  document.     It  was 
built  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventh  century  by  the   Abbot   of 

20 


ANGLO-SAXON  ART 


!    \ 


'11%%:^ 


Peterborough,  who  used  a  great  deal  of  Roman  brick  in  its  erection. 
It  originally  consisted  of  an  apsidal  sanctuary  opening  into  a  choir 
of  thirty  feet  square,  which, 
again,  communicated  by  an 
arch  of  about  twenty-eight 
feet  span  with  a  nave  about 
fifty-six  feet  long  by  thirty 
broad.  Westward  of  the  nave 
was  built,  in  later,  perhaps, 
but  still  Saxon  times,  a  square 
tower  with  a  curious  attach- 
ment on  its  western  side,  in  a 
large  circular  stair-turret  rising 
nearly  to  a  level  with  the  roof- 

ridge     or     the  fig.  28. — brixworth  church. 

church. 

The  monuments  from  the  later  period  of  Saxon 
architecture,  which  lasted  from  about  800  to  the 
Norman  Conquest,  are  so  numerous  that  not  even 
a  list  can  be  given  here.  They  range,  in  time, 
from  the  churches  of  Avebury  (Wilts),  Bishopstone 
(Sussex),  Bardsey  (Yorks),  and  Lydd  (Kent),  to  those 
of  Bradford-on-Avon  (Wilts),  Barton-on-Humber 
(Lincolnshire),  Earls  Barton  and  Barnack  (Northamp- 
tonshire), and  the  church  of  Branston  (Lincolnshire), 
in  which  last  Saxon  and  Norman  features  are  combined 
with  unusual 
intimacy. 
The  churches  of  Earls 
Barton,  Barnack,  and  Barton- 
on-Humber  afford  the  best 
remaining  examples  of  that 
use  of  stone  strips  as  surface 
decoration  which  has  been 
quoted  as  proof  that  the  forms 
taken  by  Saxon  stone  architec- 
ture were  determined  by  ex- 
perience with  timber.  This 
particular  invention — a  most 
unhappy    one,    and    one    that 

never  would  have  occurred  to  a  Celtic  people — may  have  been  so 
inspired,   but  it  has  little  to  do  with  the  general  development  of 

21 


FIG.    29. — TOWER 

ARCH,    MARKET 

OVERTON. 


FIG.   30. — SAXON  CHURCH,    BRADFORD-ON  AVON. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    31. — CHURCH   IN  DOVER   CASTLE. 


Saxon  building  ;  and  it  came 
near  the  end  of  its  course. 

A  happier  method  of  deco- 
rating a  wall  is  that  employed 
on  the  little  church  of  Brad- 
ford-on-Avon.  Here  a  shal- 
low arcade  of  semicircular 
arches  is  carried,  like  an  ex- 
ternal quasi-triforium,  round 
the  whole  of  the  church. 
It  is  supported  by  flat  pi- 
lasters, without  capitals  or 
bases,  which  divide  the  lower 


part    of    the    walls    into    well-proportioned 
panels. 

More  interesting,  even,  than  this  Brad- 
ford church  is  the  cathedral  of  Oxford  and 
its  connection  with  pre-Norman  architecture. 
After  his  massacre  of  the  Danes  in  1002, 
Ethelred  the  Unready  made  a  vow  that  he 
would  rebuild  the  church  of  St.  Frideswide, 
in  Oxford.  He  kept  his  vow,  and  some 
archaeologists  contend  that  a  .large  part  of 
his  structure  is  extant  to  this  day,  in  the 
existing  cathedral  of  Christ  Church.  The 
substructures  of  the  apse  of  the  older  church 
of  St.  Frideswide  have  been  discovered 
within  recent  years,  to  the  north  of  the  pres- 
ent choir.     Those  who   uphold   the   Saxon 


FIG.  32. — LITTLE  SAXHAM 
CHURCH   TOWER   ARCH. 


FIG.    35. — BRANSTON  CHURCH,   LINCOLNSHIRE. 

22 


theory  believe  that  Ethelred 
respected  the  previous  shrine 
and  built  his  church  to  the 
south  of  it.  They  contend 
that  the  arcade  and  walls  of 
the  present  choir  and  certain 
analogous  parts  of  the  nave 
and  transepts  are  substan- 
tially Saxon,  modified,  muti- 
lated, and  overlaid  in  later 
times  with  Norman  and 
pointed  Gothic.  The  ques- 
tion   is    too    large    and    too 


ANGLO-SAXON  ART 


^ 

1^ 

i 

^ 

u., 

HUh 

^ 

|B 

ll 

i 

w4^ 

9B'^<f> 

FIG.    34. — CLAPHAM   CHURCH, 
BEDFORDSHIRE. 


technical  for  discussion  here,  but  those  who  beHeve  the  cathedral  of 
Christ  Church  to  be  identical  in  some  of  its  parts  with  Ethelred's 
church  of  St.  Frideswide  seem  to 
have  put  forward  a  plausible  case. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of 
Saxon  architecture  it  will  be  con- 
venient to  enumerate  once  more  its 
broad  characteristics,  and  to  note 
those  features  on  which  some  re- 
liance may  be  placed  as  tests  of  a 
Saxon  origin. 

Saxon  builders  had  little  or  no 
feeling  for  the  structural  significance 
of  forms.  They  were  satisfied  to 
make  their  buildings  stand.  They 
did  not  feel  the  desirability  of 
making  them  declare,  by  their  forms, 
that  they  meant  to  stand.  No  race 
with  an  instinct  for  expressive  build- 
ing would  have  dabbled  in  such 
forms  as  **  long  and  short  work,"  or  the  vertical  dominoes  of  Earls 

Barton,     Barnack,     Barton-on-Humber, 

and  other  churches  of  the  late  period,  or 
that  infelicitous  arrangement  by  which, 
in  Saxon  tower-windows,  a  stumpy 
turned  column  or  baluster  is  set  to  hold 
up  a  long  through-stone  by  its  middle. 

Saxon  walls  often  look  too  thin  for 
their  work,  and  it  is  extremely  rare  to 
encounter  any  sign  that  their  builders 
were  alive  to  the  varying  strains  they 
would  have  to  resist.  Buttresses  very 
seldom  occur,  even  at  quoins. 

The  feeling  for  general  proportions 
was  poor.  Buildings  are  too  high  and 
narrow  for  their  superficial  extent  ; 
tapering  or  pyramidal  forms  of  any  kind 
are  rare.  The  proportion  of  voids  to 
solids  is  seldom  pleasing,  and  orna- 
mental details  are  often  unrelated, 
aesthetically,  both  to  each  other  and  to  their  situation. 

On    the    other    hand,    Saxon    technique    roughly    as    it    began, 

23 


1 

1 

11 

^■M^'iSRlft 

FIG.    35. — CHURCH  OF  ST.    REGULUS, 

ST.  Andrew's. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


shows  a  stronger  tendency  toward  refine- 
ment than  that  of  the  Normans.  It 
betrays,  perhaps,  the  first  sign  of  that 
affectionate,  though  not  always  well  di- 
rected, solicitude  which  was  to  be 
a  permanent  characteristic  of  our  national 
art.  As  examples  of  this  we  may  name  the 
scanty  remains  of  the  Saxon  Church  at 
Westminster  Abbey,  the  pillars  of  the  Saxon 
crypt  at  Repton,  and  the  upper  stage  of 
St.  Benet's  tower,  Cambridge,  which  must 
have  been  a  most  happy  design  before  it 
lost  its  "  German  helm." 

A    masterpiece    of    architecture    may    be 
compared    to    the    human    body.     Just    as 
the     latter     has     its     supporting     skeleton, 
(Restoration  by  the  Author.)     its     vital     organs     Conveniently     disposed, 
and    an    outer    skin    which    both    protects 

the    whole     and    welds     it 

into   unity  and  beauty,  so   a 

perfect    building    is    one    in 

which   three  similar  elements 

are  happily  allied.  The  Saxon 

architects  failed  to  grasp  the 

logical     connection     between 

these     three     elements,    with 

the   result   that    such    charm 

as     their     structures     possess 

is     invariably     due     to     the 

interest    of    the    parts,    never 

to   the    high   organization  of 

the  whole 

FIG.   37. — repton:   SAXON  CRYPT. 


FIG.   36. — TOWER   OF   ST. 
benet's,    CAMBRIDGE. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  TO  CHAPTER  II 

G.  Baldwin  Brown,  M.A.,  The  Arts  in  Early  England  (vol.  i,  The  Life  of  Saxon  England 
in  its  Relation  to  the  Arts ;  vol.  ii,  Ecclesiastical  Architecture  in  England  from  the  Conversion  of 
the  Saxons  to  the  Norman  Conquest),  London,  1903.  J.  Fergusson,  History  of  Architecture, 
vol.  ii,  London,  1874.  Sir  G.  G.  Scott,  Lectures  on  the  Rise  and  Development  of  Med i cecal 
Architecture,  2  vols.,  London,  1879.  King,  Handbooks  to  the  English  Cathedrals,  Murray. 
London.  Bell's  Series  of  Handbooks  to  the  English  Cathedrals.  T.  Hudson  Turner,  Some 
Account  of  Domestic  Architecture  in  England  from  the  Conquest  to  the  End  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  Oxford  and  London,  1877.  J.  Park  Harrison,  The  pre-Norman  Date  of  the  Design 
and  some  of  the  Stone-work  of  Oxford  Cathedral ;  Discovery  of  the  Remains  of  Three  Apses  at 
Oxford  Cathedral :  A  pre-Norman  Window  in  Oxford  CathedraliLondoa  1894).  Brown,  R., 
Notes  on  the  Earlier  History  of  Barton-on-H umber,  n.d. 

24 


FIG.    38. — ST.    BARTHOLOMEW'S   THE   GREAT,    LONDON.       (PARTLY   RESTORED.) 


CHAPTER  III 


ANGLO-NORMAN      ARCHITECTURE. 
ARCHED  GOTHIC 


OR      ROUND 


The  connection  between  early  Norman  architecture  and  that  of 
the  Saxons  was  probably  less  slight  than  is  usually  supposed.  We 
can,  in  fact,  recognize  an  adumbration  of  Norman  forms  in  many 
buildings  which  unmistakably  betray  a  Saxon  origin,  such  as  the 
church  at  Branston,  Lincolnshire  (Fig.  33),  which  would  certainly 
have  been  classed  as  Norman  but  for  the  presence  of  Saxon  technique 
in  its  execution.  There  can,  however,  be  no  doubt  that  both  the 
Saxon  natives  and  their  Norman  conquerors  believed  the  new  style 
to  embody  a  fresh  departure,  to  be  a  novum  genus  compositionis, 
to  use  the  phrase  of  Matthew  Paris.  How  far  it  was  strictly 
Norman  does  not  concern  us  here.  It  is  enough  for  our  purpose  to 
know  that  it  was  a  style  elaborated  by  the  race  which  sprang 
from  the  conquest  of  Neustria  and  its  Celtic  population  by  the 
Norse  invaders.  Its  form  may  have  been  influenced,  to  some 
extent,  by  the  example  set  by  the  late  Saxon  builders  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Channel,  and  its  development  was  stimulated,  no  doubt, 
by  the  sudden  increase  of  artistic  activity  which  took  place  all  over 
Christendom  as  soon  as  the  dreaded  year,  1000,  had  been  safely 
passed. 

25 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   39. — ST.   JOHN'S  CHAPEL, 
TOWER   OF   LONDON. 


In  the  eleventh  century,  and  for  long  after  it,  a  narrow  sea  was 
no  such  barrier  between  one  country  and  another  as  it  is  now.  In 
the  days  when  roads  scarcely  existed,  and 
means  of  land  locomotion  were  at  once  bad 
and  confined  to  the  rich,  a  sea,  if  not  too 
wide,  made  possible  an  intercourse  which 
could  not  have  been  carried  on  over  any 
i  ^HL|  9  li^l  serious  distance  by  land.  Normandy  was 
I  A  ^■■■H^H  practically  nearer  to  England  than  to  Paris. 
r  Al^H^V^^H  The  Normans  had  more  in  common  with 
the  English  than  with  the  French.  Even 
to  this  day  habits  that  we  recognize  as 
English  have  persisted  in  the  Duchy,  many 
parts  of  which  are  not  to  be  distinguished, 
even  by  the  keenest  eye,  from  the  southern 
counties  of  England.  In  tracing  the  origin 
of  Norman  Gothic,  then,  it  is  only  fair  to 
postulate  a  reciprocal  action  between  the  two  countries,  the  late, 
refined  Saxon  builders  having  their  influence  over  the  younger, 
ruder,  and  more  vigorous  Normans,  and  vice  Versa. 

Norman  architecture  ran  its  early  course  on  almost  parallel  lines 
in  Normandy  and  England.  It  was  a 
comparatively  new  thing  with  the  in- 
vaders themselves  when  they  followed 
their  Duke  to  this  country.  Lanfranc, 
Abbot  of  St.  Stephen's,  Caen,  whom 
William  appointed  to  the  See  of 
Canterbury  in  1070,  began  the  re- 
building of  the  English  cathedral  on 
lines  which  exactly  followed  those  of 
the  Norman  Abbey,  then  recently  com- 
menced. Canterbury  was  finished  first. 
Its  still  existing  parts  may  be  taken  as 
the  oldest  survivals  of  the  new  style 
of  any  importance,  but  it  had  a  pred- 
ecessor in  the  church  built  by  Edward 
the  Confessor  on  the  site  at  West- 
minster which  has  since  become  so 
famous.  This  church  was  apsidal.  It 
had  a  triforium,  which  appears  to  have 

been  vaulted,  like  the  aisle  below.     It  had  a  central  and  two  western 
towers,    the   choir    being   in    the   crossing.     It   contained    numerous 

26 


/?%. 

r  4        ^::-% 

F  "        ^rM 

L  m        W::^ 

J 

if .  m        m:-M 

10     5      p            iPFFrT 

FIG.  40. — PLAN :  ST.  John's  chapel, 

TOWER  OF  LONDON. 


ANGLO-NORMAN  ARCHITECTURE 


chapels,    in    the    triforium    as 

well   as   on    the    floor    of    the 

church.     Such  evidence  as  we 

possess  goes  to  prove  that  the 

ground  covered  by  it  coincided 

pretty  well  with  that  on  which 

the  present  Abbey  stands.     An 

interesting  feature  of  the  scanty 

remains     of     the     Confessor's 

buildings    is    the    comparative 

delicacy  of   the  workmanship, 

hinting  at  the  junction  of   an 

old    tradition — that    of    Saxon 

building — with  the  rude  vigor 

of  the  new  style. 

A    characteristic    of     Early 

Norman     cathedral     planning 

was  the  laying  out  of  eastern 

ends  in  numerous  apses — Bury 

St.    Edmunds     and    Norwich 

had   three,   St.   Alban's   seven 

(Fig.  42).     Few  traces  of  this 

arrangement    are    now    to    be 

found  above  ground. 

Norman  Gothic  breathed  almost  from  the  beginning  a  spirit  which  led 

naturally  to  the  pointed  style  by  which  it  was  succeeded.  Its  character- 
istics may 
be  thus  enu- 
merated : — 
1.  Great 
thickness 
and  weight 
of  walls, 
to  secure 
stability 
among  the 
numerous 
thrusts  of 
FIG.  42. — PLAN  OF  ST.  alban's  in  lOQo.  vaults    and 

arches. 

2.  The  employment  of  the  semicircular  and  segmental  arch. 

3.  Variation  in  the  proportions  of  piers  and  columns  according  to 

27 


FIG.  41. — TOWER  OF   ST.  ALBAN  S   CATHEDRAL. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  43. — NORWICH   CATHEDRAL  : 
NAVE. 


the  load  to  be  carried,  and  not  to  their 
height. 

4.  Subdivision  of  arches  into  two  or 
more  orders,  and  of  piers  to  meet  that 
subdivision. 

5.  The  use  of  ornamental  motives 
appropriate  to  subdivided  arches  and 
piers. 

Among  all  these  features  the  two 
which  prepared  the  way  for  the  forms 
of  pointed  architecture  were  the  sub- 
division of  piers  and  arches  and  the 
use  of  the  semicircular  or  segmental 
arch.  The  one  led  naturally  to  that 
system  of  economizing  material  and 
accenting  ossature  which  was  carried 
in  time  to  its  logical  conclusion  by  the 
architects  of  the  thirteenth  century  ;  the  other  opened  a  path  to  the 
idea  of  cutting  a  vertical  slice  out  of  the  centre  of  a  semicircular 
arch  when  its  span  had  to  be  narrowed, 
an  expedient  which  would  be  more 
grateful  to  eyes  accustomed  to  seg- 
mental forms  than  any  modification  of 
the  curve  itself. 

The  earliest  complete  example  of 
very  early  Norman  Gothic  which  still 
exists  in  this  country  is  the  Chapel  of 
St.  John,  in  the  Tower  of  London 
(Figs.  39  and  40).  Granted  Norman 
principles,  a  better  design  could  scarcely 
be  produced.  It  is,  of  course,  unreason- 
ably solid  and  heavy,  and  the  stilted 
arches  in  the  apse  are  ugly,  but  the 
decoration  of  the  capitals,  the  sub- 
division of  the  wall  pilasters,  and  the 
combination  of  a  plain  wagon  vault 
over  the  nave  with  the  groining  of  the 
aisles,  all  show  conscious  skill  on  the 
part  of  the  architect. 

A     more     ambitious     monument    of 
early    Norman    is    the    Abbey — now    cathedral — of    St.    Alban's 
(Figs.   41    and  42).     Its  erection  was  begun  by   the  monk   Paul, 

28 


Hfti 

1 

FIG.  44. — NORWICH  CATHEDRAL  : 
CHOIR. 


ANGLO-NORMAN  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.   45.— DURHAM  NAVE. 


of  St.  Stephen's,  Caen,  soon  after  his  relative,  Lanfranc,  had  com- 
menced operations  at  Canterbury.  Paul  was  ambitious,  and 
designed  a  church  to  cover  nearly  twice 
as  much  ground  as  the  site  with  which 
Lanfranc  was  contented.  St.  Alban's 
was  465  feet  long,  210  wide  across  the 
transept  and,  probably,  1 55  wide  across 
the  west  front.  It  was  built  entirely  of 
Roman  brick  and  other  materials  from 
the  neighboring  ruins  of  Verulamium. 
It  was  covered,  within  and  without,  with 
white  plaster.  Before  his  death.  Abbot 
Paul  had  caused  the  semi-dome  of  the 
apse  behind  the  high  altar  to  be  enriched 
with  painting,  an  example  followed  by 
his  successors  throughout  the  church. 
The  inside  roofs  were  flat  timber  ceil- 
ings, painted.  For  internal  decorative 
effect,  St.  Alban's  depended  on  painting  and  on  the  due  subordina- 
tion of  its  piers  and  arches,  as,  indeed,  it  was  bound  to  do  by  the 
intractable  nature  of  its  materials. 

At  the  same  time  as  St.  Alban's,  a  great  Norman  cathedral  was 
being  erected  at  York.  It  was  begun  between  1070  and  1080, 
but  only  the  slightest  indications  of  its  plan  now  remain.  Win- 
chester Cathedral  was  begun  somewhat  later,  probably  in  1080,  on 
a  still  vaster  scale.     It  was  530  feet  in  extreme  length  and  225  in 

width  across  the  transepts. 
The  transepts  and  the  crypt 
under  the  east  end  are  all  that 
we  can  now  see  of  this  Norman 
church,  although  much  of  its 
fabric  still  exists  inside  the 
later  Gothic  (Fig.  48).  Being 
carried  out  in  stone,  it  was 
more  thoroughly  developed 
and  more  satisfactory  alto- 
gether than  the  church  at 
St.  Alban's.  Another  cathe- 
dral dating  from  the  same 
period  is  that  of  Ely,  begun 
by  Abbot  Symeon  when  he  was  not  far  short  of  a  hundred  years 
old.     Here   the   plan,    while   similar   to    those   of   Winchester   and 

29 


FIG.    46. — DURHAM   CATHEDRAL. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   47. — TEWKESBURY  ABBEY. 


St.  Alban's  in  some  parts,  had  a  touch  of  originaHty  in  a  splendid 
western  transept,  of  which  some  of  the  features  were  immediately 

afterward  reproduced  in  the 
abbey  church  of  Bury  St. 
Edmunds. 

Next,  perhaps,  after  that 
of  Ely,  came  the  rebuilding 
of  St.  Paul's.  This  was 
begun  in  1083,  by  Bishop 
Maurice,  on  the  great  scale 
which  remained  a  distinction 
of  the  cathedral  of  London 
down  to  the  fire  of  1666. 
Its  architecture  resembled 
that  of  Winchester,  but  was 
more  ornate.  Its  proportions, 
too,  were  loftier.  About  the 
same  time  as  St.  Paul's,  the  Norman  cathedral  of  Rochester  was 
begun  by  Bishop  Gundulph,  a  great  builder.  He  founded  Rochester 
Castle,  built  the  White  Tower  in  the  Tower  of  London,  and  one 
or  two  smaller  buildings  besides.  In  1096  was  begun  what  is,  on 
the  whole,  the  most  complete  monument  of  Norman  architecture 
now  remaining  in  the  country.  This  is  the  cathedral  of  Norwich, 
commenced  by  Bishop  Herbert  de 
Losinga,  who  had  purchased  the  see 
from  William  II  for  the  sum  of  £1,900 
(Figs.  43  and  44).  The  cathedral  is 
made  up  of  a  very  long  nave  of  fourteen 
bays,  a  transept  192  feet  long  and  an 
apsidal  choir,  or  rather  sanctuary. 
Among  other  foundations  dating  from 
this  period  of  unexampled  energy  in 
building  are  the  cathedrals  of  Worcester, 
Chichester,  Gloucester,  and  Durham, 
and  the  abbeys  and  churches  of  Tewkes- 
bury (Fig.  47),  Waltham,  Christchurch 
(Hants),  and  Bury  St.  Edmunds. 

The  early  phase  of  Norman  touches 
its  apogee  at  Durham  (Fig.  45).  The 
design  has  a  vitality  we  do  not  always 

find   in   the  style.     The   nave   is   no   monotonous   repetition   of   one 
motive,    as    at   St.    Alban's,    and,    although    in    a    less   degree,   at 

30 


.^- 


li     \i. 


1 


FIG.   48. — WINCHESTER,    TRANS- 
FORMATION  OF  NAVE. 


ANGLO-NORMAN  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.   4g. — KOCK  OF  CASHEL. 


Norwich.  It  is  divided  into  symmetrical  sections,  each  comprising 
two  bays,  and  supplying  a  happily  proportioned  constituent  to  the 
general  scheme  (Fig. 
46).  The  Norman 
nave  of  Durham  is  a 
book  in  well-balanced 
chapters ;  that  of  Nor- 
man St.  Alban's,  an 
unbroken,  rather  long- 
winded  narrative. 
Externally,  Durham 
suffers  from  the 
spaciousness  of  its  tri- 
forium.  This  is  lofty 
enough  to  embrace, 
under  its  roof,  the  but- 
tresses which  take  the 
thrust     of     the     nave 

vault,  and  so  to  deprive  the  exterior  of  a  valuable  source  of  variety 
and  shadow.^  On  the  other  hand,  Durham  has  been  less  un- 
happy in  its  disasters  than  some  other  cathedrals.  Even  WyattV 
meagre  rose  window  has  a  good  effect,  at  a  distance.  And  Durham 
is  distinguished  among  Norman  churches  as  being  vaulted  through- 
out, although,  indeed,  it  may 
be  said  that  the  vaulting  of 
the  transepts  was  not  origi- 
nally intended. 

It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  century  immediately 
following  the  Norman  con- 
quest was  the  great  century 
of  architectural  ambition  in 
England.  The  Norman 
clergy  had  no  sooner  settled 
into  their  share  of  the  spoil, 
than  they  began  to  build. 
Their  ideas  grew  so  rapidly 
that,  before  a  generation  had 
passed,  they  had  covered  the  country  with  Norman  Gothic,  and 
were   erecting   cathedrals   on   a   scale   almost   unknown   in   Europe. 

1  As  originally  built,  the  aisles  had  gabled  roofs,  which  were  less  monotonous  than  the  present 
mangement.     See  Sir  G.  G.  Scott's  Mediaeval  Architecture,  vol,  ii,  p.  129. 

31 


FIG.    50. — FOUNTAINS   ABBEY,    SOUTH   TRANSEPT 
AND   TOWER. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    51.— LITTLE  SAXHAM  CHURCH. 


indications  to  be  found  in  illuminated  manu- 
scripts, partly  by  reasoning  from  monumental 
buildings. 

The  English  house  of  the  Saxon  and 
early  Norman  period  was  a  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  Roman  villa.  In  Italy  the  Roman 
house,  outside  Rome,  consisted,  roughly 
speaking,  of  an  open  atrium  surrounded 
by  small  rooms  in  which  sleeping,  eating 
and  cooking  took  place.  In  England  the 
atrium  became,  by  force  of  weather,  the 
hall.  This  hall  was  for  long  the  only  large 
room  in  the  building.     It  was  originally  used 

in  common  by 


They  discounted  our  thirteenth  century 
and  the  chances  of  our  Early  Pointed. 
In  France  the  great  expansion  took 
place  later.  It  had  to  await  the  partial 
removal  of  the  foreign  incubus  and  the 
apparition  of  a  great  king  in  Philip 
Augustus,  before  it  could  gather  way. 
The  result  was  that  it  coincided  with 
the  finest  moment  of  Gothic  art,  and  the 
fullest  advantage  could  be  taken  of  the 
opportunities  given. 

The  Domestic  architecture  of  this 
Early  Norman  period  has  to  be  divined 
partly  from  the 


w^- 

':*^^ 

"^ 

m 

tt 

1 

m 

^H| 

H 

V  ^  m 

BSP  * 

''I 

f  ;   ^fl 

"'^ 

u.    y^H 

^^. 

^ 

FIG.    52. — CORMACK  S 
CHAPEL,   CASHEL. 


FIG.    S3. — DOORWAY  OF  CHAPTER- 
HOUSE,  DURHAM  .CATHEDRAL. 


the  master  and  his  family  and  all  his 
retainers.  Gradually  subordinate  cham- 
bers were  added,  and  became  more  and 
more  numerous  and  important.  But 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that, 
during  the  Norman  period,  the  concep- 
tion of  a  house  as  a  hall  with  a  few 
special  chambers  attached  was  ever 
superseded.  These  halls  were  often  of 
very  noble  proportions  as  well  as  of 
elegant  architecture.  But  such  speci- 
mens belong  to  a  later  date  than  we 
have  yet  reached.  At  first  the  hall 
had,  as  a  rule,  but  one  room  of  any 
32 


FIG.  54. 


-GLASTONBURY   ABBEY,    ST.  JOSEPH'S 
CHAPEL. 


ANGLO-NORMAN  ARCHITECTURE 

size  attached  to  it.  This  was  the  private  room,  with  beds,  of  the 
master  and  his  family,  and  was  known  as  the  *'  solar."  Gradually 
other  rooms  and  "  hovels  "  [the 
latter  usually  without  windows] 
were  added.  The  kitchen  was 
separate,  when  it  existed  at  all, 
but  cooking  was  often  done  in 
the  open  air.  In  short,  the  house 
developed  slowly  and  steadily, 
from  the  single  room  for  all  pur- 
poses to  the  complex  arrange- 
ments of  a  matured  civilization,  by 
a  process  similar  to  that  known  in 
biology  as  fissiparous  generation. 
Having  now  referred  to  the 
most  characteristic  productions 
of  the  Norman  period  in  Eng- 
land, it  may  be  well  to  give  a 
resume'  of  its  distinctive  features. 

Relative  height  was  lower  than  in  Saxon  buildings.  The  narrow 
and  high  naves  which  were  so  common  in  Saxon  churches,  sug- 
gesting that  the  architect  was  afraid  of  a  wide  span  for  his  roofs, 
are  superseded  by  others  of  lower,  shorter  and  wider  proportions.' 
Saxon    walls,    with    their   careful    execution    on    vicious    lines,    are 

succeeded  by  walls  roughly 
carried  out  on  sounder  prin- 
ciples. Norman  walls  are 
very  thick,  with  large  joints 
and  bad  mortar.  In  monu- 
mental buildings,  a  core  of 
rough  stones,  scarcely  held 
together  by  an  apology  for 
mortar,  was  faced  and  sup- 
ported by  a  comparatively 
thin  skin  of  ashlar,  or  dressed 
stones.  Things  improved  as 
time  went  on,  but  the  Nor- 
mans never  became  really 
;ood  builders.  If  their  cathe- 
rals    had    been    constructed 


FIG.  55.— LEUCHARS  CHURCH,   FIFE. 


.  ,       ,  ,,  ,,  uiaia     ndu     ucen     construciea 

with    the    solidity   of    our    modern    public    buildings,    they    would 
scarcely  be  showing  a  sign  of  age  even  at  this  day. 

33  D 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    56. — NAVE,    ELY   CATHEDRAL. 


The    skeleton    of    a    Norman    church    is    but    gently    suggested. 
Buttresses    are    wide,    but    very    shallow.     Walls    terminate    above 

in  a  parapet  of  slight  projection, 
carried  often  by  a  corbel  table 
reminiscent  of  a  military  machi- 
colation. Windows,  as  a  rule, 
are  simple  round-headed  open- 
ings with  little  ornament  (Figs. 
39,  47,  etc.).  Wheel  windows 
are  often  used,  in  gables.  Walls 
are  ornamented  by  blind  ar- 
cades, sometimes  of  two  orders, 
sometimes  interlaced,  uncomfort- 
ably, like  the  edges  of  a  basket. 
Doorways  are  the  chief  centres 
of  ornament.  Orders  here  are 
often  greatly  multiplied  and 
worked  with  as  much  ornament 
as  they  will  bear  (Figs.  52  and 
53).  Norman  capitals  show  an 
almost  unbroken  evolution  from 
a  form  which  may  be  compared 
to  the  Doric  capital  of  Greece  to  the  delicate,  plant-suggested  forms 
of  early  Pointed.  Norman  vaults,  which  are  comparatively  rare, 
are  of  all  types  from  plain  barrel,  or 
wagon,  to  groined  and  ribbed,  vaults 
(Fig.  39,  45).  Churches  often  have  their 
aisles  vaulted  and  their  naves  covered 
with  a  wooden  ceiling  (Fig.  56).  It  is 
doubtful,  however,  whether  any  Norman 
roof  of  timber  has  survived  to  our  time. 
Throughout  the  first  half  of  the 
twelfth  century  the  Norman  forms 
underwent  a  continual  process  of  re- 
finement, on  the  one  hand,  and  enrich- 
ment on  the  other.  Walls  become 
thinner,  joints  closer  and  more  carefully 
worked,  columns  less  thick,  carving 
more  delicate  and  more  undercut,  but- 
tresses more  salient.  Speaking  gener- 
ally, buildings  become  more  enriched  with  shadow,  and  more 
inclined  to  confess  their  ossature.     The  ruling  spirit  changed  fronr 

34 


FIG.  57- 


CHICHESTER  CATHEDRAL  ! 

NAVE. 


ANGLO-NORMAN  ARCHITECTURE 

being  one  interested  in  the  refined  execution  and  decoration  of  a 
whole  conceived  simply  as  an  enclosure,  into  one  curious  about 
structure,  articulation,  development  ;  into  one  which  saw  something 
akin  to  the  architecture  of  a  tree  in  that  of  a  great  cathedral,  and 
wished  to  give  to  each  part  a  relation  to  that  which  immediately 
preceded  it,  not  unlike  the  relation  of  leaf  to  twig,  of  twig  to  bough, 
of  bough  to  trunk,  and  of  trunk  to  root.  That  this  relation  was 
more  strongly  insisted  upon  south  of  the  Channel  than  in  England 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  Norseman  and  Celt  was  an  alloy  more 
favorable  to  a  structural  unity  in  art  than  that  of  Norseman  and 
Anglo-Saxon.  But  even  here  it  had  its  effect.  The  final  traces  of 
Saxon  flatness  and  boxiness  disappeared,  and  at  last  everything  was 
ready  for  that  apparition  of  the  pointed  arch  and  its  consequences 
which  was  to  mark  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

G.  Baldwin  Brown,  The  Arts  in  Early  England,  1903.  Sir  G.  Gilbert  Scott,  Lectures  on  ihe 
Rise  and  Development  of  Mediaeval  Architecture,  London,  1879.  J.  H.  Parker,  Glossary  of 
Terms  used  in  Grecian,  Roman,  Italian,  and  Gothic  Architecture,  Oxford,  1850.  R.  J.  King, 
Handbooks  to  the  English  Cathedrals  (Murray)  ;  ditto,  by  various  authors  (Bell)  :  Britton,  J., 
Architectural  Antiquities  of  Great  Britain,  1807-1835;  Hill,  A.,  Monograph  of  Cormac's 
Chapel,  Cashel,  Cork,  1874;  Ancient  Irish  Architecture,  Cork,  1870.  W.  Longman,  The 
Three  Cathedrals  Dedicated  to  St.  Paul,  London,  1873.  J.  Neale,  The  Abbey  Church  of 
St.  Alban,  Herts,  1878.  G.  Petrie,  Ecclesiastical  Architecture  of  Ireland,  Dublin,  1845. 
V.  M.  C.  Ruprich-Robert,  L' Architecture  Normande  au  XL'  et  XII'  Siecles,  Paris,  1884, 
et  seq.  Archceologia,  1 773-1908.  B.  Winkles,  Cathedrals  of  England  and  Wales.  1836-1842. 
Spanton.J..  When  Was  My  Parish  Church  Built?   1900. 


RG.    58. — CANTERBURY  CATHEDRAL  :   CRYPT. 


35 


d2 


FIG.    59. — LINXOLN   CATHEDRAL,    FROM   THE   SOUTH. 


CHAPTER  IV 


EARLY    ENGLISH,    OR    FIRST    POINTED,    GOTHIC 
ARCHITECTURE 

A  GREAT  deal  of  inconclusive  discussion  has  gone  on  over  the 
origin  of  the  pointed  arch  and  the  structural  system  to  which  it  led. 
No  very  profound  study  of  Romanesque  and  Norman  buildings  is 
required  to  show  that  problems  frequently  arose  for  which  one 
obvious  solution  was  to  cut,  in  the  mind,  a  vertical  slice  from  the  centre 

of  a  semicircular  arch.  The 
play  of  the  diagonals  of  a 
groined  vault  also  helped  to 
draw  attention  to  the  pointed 
form.  Used  at  first  in  special 
situations,  to  overcome  inci- 
dental difficulties,  and  some- 
times for  mere  decoration,  the 
pointed  arch  soon  began  to 
proclaim  its  own  flexibility  and 
FIG.  60. — CLOISTERS,  FOUNTAINS  ABBEY.  to    mvite    tile    arciiitect    to    a 

fuller  exploration  of  its  powers. 
In  the  hands  of  builders  who  had  carried  the  subordination  of 
arches    to    the    development    reached    in    late    Norman    work,    the 

36 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.   6 1. — EASTERN   TRAN- 
SEPT,   LINCOLN. 


additional  facilities  for  getting  rid  of  superfluous  material  and  light- 
ening a  whole  structure  by  clothing  its  skeleton  as  thinly  as  possible, 
afforded  by  the  pointed  form,  were  sure  to 
lead  rapidly  to  their  logical  conclusion  in 
France,  and  as  near  to  it  in  England  as  we 
English  ever  get. 

The  essential  distinction  which  gradually 
established  itself  between  pointed  Gothic  and 
other  forms  of  architecture  was  its  system- 
atic reduction  of  the  ratio  of  material  em- 
ployed to  space  enclosed.  Its  structural 
forms  are  a  consequence  of  this  process 
and  of  the  necessity  for  using  small  units. 
The  great  stones  of  trabeated  building  were 
not  to  be  had  in  Western  Europe. 

The  earliest  systematic  users  of  the  pointed 
arch  in  this  country  appear  to  have  been 
the  Cistercians.  By  them  it  was  employed 
in  its  simplest  and  least  decorative  form, 
indeed,     but    with     rare     intelligence.       It 

would  be  difficult  to  name  any  buildings  in  which  the  essential 
elements  of  any  style  of  architecture  are  used  with  more  simplicity 
and  success  than  are  those  of  First  Pointed  in  the  Cistercian  abbeys. 
The  **  Cloisters,"  or  cellarium,  of  Fountains 
Abbey  (Fig.  60)  may  be  given  as  an  example. 
In  the  church  at  Fountains  a  further  proof  that 
Cistercian  architects  were  curious  about  struct- 
ural principles  is  afforded  by  the  nave  aisles. 
Here  each  bay  is  covered  with  its  own 
transverse  vault,  carried  upon  arches  springing 
from  the  main  piers  of  the  nave,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  from  corbels  on  the  outer  wall  on 
the  other.  By  this  arrangement  the  more 
dangerous  thrusts  are  minimized ;  but  it  does 
not  lead  to  beauty. 

The  written  history  of  early  pointed  architect- 
ure has  been  disfigured  by  a  somewhat  absurd 
partisanship.  We  have  had,  on  the  one  hand, 
English  writers  who  have  treated  the  Gothic 
style  as  essentially  English,  even  going  so  far 
as  to  call  it  "  the  English  Style "  ;  and,  on  the  other,  French, 
English,  and  now  American  critics  who  have  flown  to  the  opposite 

37 


FIG.   62. — CHOIR,   WEST- 
MINSTER ABBEY,  LONDON. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


extreme,  and  asserted  that  the  only  true  Gothic  is  that  of  France, 
all  others  being  its  more  or  less  unintelligent  imitations.  Ihe 
English  chauvinism  was  the  result  of  pure  ignorance,  Gothic  France 
having  been  scarcely  studied  at  all  when  Rickman  began  to  write. 

The   opposite   contention    is 


f    '^:   •     •  "  t  t  I  f  1  1  T  T  t  j|4| 


FIG.    63. — WESTMINSTER    ABBEY  :    PLAN. 


more  deliberately  partisan, 
for  we  often  find  it  sup- 
ported by  arbitrary  defini- 
tions carefully  adapted  to 
French  Gothic.      Some 

justification  might,  possibly, 
have  been  given  for  the 
statement  that  only  French 
Gothic  is  genume  if  English 
examples   had    been   echoes 

of  French,   if,   for  instance,   Westminster  Abbey  had  stood  in    the 

same  relation  to  some  French  church  as  the  old  Norman  Cathedral  of 

Canterbury  did  to  St.  Stephen's,  Caen.     But  no  such  relation  existed. 

English  Gothic  and  French 

were  separate  and  divergent 

growths  from  one  root,  each 

pursuing  its  own  ideals  and 

developing  its  own  vernacu- 
lar,   and    soon    reaching    a 

point   at   which   borrowing, 

the  one  from  the  other,  was 

perforce  restricted  to  general 

ideas.     In  an   artistic  sense, 

England  and  Northern 

France    were    scarcely    two 

nations  in  Plantagenet  times. 

They    had    much    more    in 

common,   for  instance,   than 

the    North    of    France    had 

with  the  South.  Their  in- 
tercourse  was   intimate   and 

frequent.     Ideas    could    not 

be  adopted  in  the  one  country 

without  becoming  known  in 

the  other.     But  in  each  these 

ideas  were  used  in  obedience  to  the  diversity  of  character  ethno- 

logically  set  up.     No  better  instance  of   the  biased  criticism  which 

38 


FIG.    64. — WESTMINSTER   ABBEY:    NAVE. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


has  been  directed  against  English  Gothic  could  be  given  than  the 
way  in  which  Westminster  Abbey  has  been  treated.  It  is  obviously 
eclectic  in  conception.  Parts,  but 
only  parts,  of  the  plan,^  the  propor- 
tions of  height  to  width  of  the  nave 
and  aisles,  and  the  treatment  of  the 
transept  ends  and  east  end,  are  more 
French  than  English.  But  there  the 
foreign  influence  stops.  The  propor- 
tion of  height  to  length,  the  minor 
proportions,  the  designs  of  arches 
and  windows,  the  mouldings,  the 
caps  and  abaci,  the  treatment  of  wall 
surfaces,  are  all  in  the  English  ver- 
nacular. It  may,  in  fact,  be  com- 
pared to  a  novel  conceived  partly  on 
French  lines  but  written  in  English, 
which  would  certainly  be  an  English 
novel.  It  is  the  work  of  some  un- 
known English  architect  of  genius, 
who,  by  the  exercise  of  a  conscious 

faculty  for  selection  which  was  rare  in  the  middle  ages,  obeyed  the 
wish  of  Henry  III,  and  achieved  what  is,  perhaps,  the  most  faultless 
design  in  the  whole  range  of  Gothic  architecture,  French  or  English. 

But  this  is  anticipating.     The 


FIG.    65. 


LINCOLN   CATHEDRAL,    WEST 
FRONT. 


FIG.    66. SALISBURY   CATHEDRAL  :     PLAN. 


transition  from  round  arched  to 
pointed  Gothic  requires  to  be 
treated  a  little  more  at  length 
before  plunging  into  a  discussion 
of  the  latter  in  its  full  develop- 
ment. 

New  features  and  enlightened 
aims  began  to  declare  them- 
selves very  early  in  the  twelfth 
century.  The  blind  force  of 
Norman  building  gave  way  to  a  new  elegance  and  lightness,  to  an 
awakened  sense  of  proportion  between  work  to  be  done  and  effort 
put  forth.  Walls  grew  thinner,  openings  larger,  **  orders "  more 
numerous,  decorative  features  richer  and  more  complex.  The 
pointed  arch  appeared  and  soon  began  to  talk  to  the  more  intelligent 

1  Scott  seems  to  have   forgotten   the   length   of  the   transept  and  the   shortness  of  the  sanctuary 
when  he  said  that  the  plan  of  the  Abbey  was  "purely  French." 

39 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


of  those  who  used  it,  suggesting  its  own  fitness  for  the  solution  of 
many  problems,  especially  in  the  matter  of  vaults,  which  had  puzzled 
the  Norman  builder. 


FIG.   67. —  SALISBURY  CATHEDRAL. 


The  best  example,  for  our 
purpose,  of  the  transition 
between  round  arched  and 
pointed  Gothic  is  afforded, 
perhaps,  by  Chichester  Cathe- 
dral (Fig.  57),  where  the  nave 
is  Norman,  while,  in  a  single 
bay  of  the  choir,  the  two 
forms  are  combined  with  ex- 
traordinary felicity.  This 
choir,  however,  is  by  no 
means  one  of  the  earliest  in- 
stances, for  its  approximate 
date  is  1 1 86 ;  it  was  begun 
immediately  after  the  fire  which  consumed  much  of  the  Cathedral 
in  that  year.  The  transition  from  the  round  to  the  pointed  basis 
of  style  was  not  continuous.  Builders  vacillated  for  a  time  between 
the  two,  just  as  they  did  or  did  not  perceive  the  full  significance  of 
the  new  invention.  With  their  never  failing  genius  for  construction 
and  articulation,  the  French  developed  the  invention  more  rapidly 
and  more  systemati- 
cally than  the  English, 
but  nevertheless  the 
oldest  structure  in 
which  the  new  style 
exists  without  any 
echo  from  the  old  is 
in  England,  and  not 
in  France. 

Those  writers  on 
architecture  who  ap- 
pear to  take  for  their 
first  principle  that  noth- 
ing is  good  unless  it 
comes  out  of  France, 
assert  that  the  choir 
and    eastern     transept 

of  Lincoln  are  French,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  all  the  details  are 
English  and  that  no  similar  work  of  the  kind  can  be   pointed  to 

40 


FIG.    68. — SALISBURY  CATHEDRAL. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.   69. — YORK    MINSTER,    SOUTH 
TRANSEPT  AND    CENTRAL   TOWER. 


south  of  the  channel.    The  following 

opinion  from  Viollet-le-Duc,  whose 

knowledge  of  Gothic  detail  was,  and 

still   remains,   unrivalled   in  France, 

has  been  often  quoted  but  may  here 

be   given  once  more,   as   the  com- 

pletest  answer  to  those  who  would 

deprive    England   of    the    credit   of 

Lincoln    choir  :     "  After    the    most 

careful  examination  I  cannot  find,  in 

any  part  of  the  Cathedral  of  Lincoln, 

neither  in  the  general  design,  nor  in 

any  part  of  the  system  of  architect- 
ure adopted,   nor  in  the  details  of 

ornament,   any  trace  of  the  French 

school   of   the   twelfth   century   (the 

Lay  school,  from  1  )  70  to  1 220),  so 

plainly  characteristic  of  the  Cathe- 
drals of  Paris,  Noyon,  Senlis,  Char- 

tres.  Sens,  and  even  Rouen The  construction  is  English,  the 

profiles  of  the  mouldings  are  English,  the  ornaments  are  English,  the 

execution  of  the  work  belongs  to  the  English  school  of  workmen  of 

the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century."  So  convinced  was  Viollet 
of  the  English  origin  of  Lincoln  choir  that  he 
refused  to  accept  the  date  given  for  its  con- 
struction, thinking  it  impossible  that  our  archi- 
tects could  so  have  anticipated  those  of  his  own 
nationality.  But  the  evidence  as  to  date 
seems  beyond  dispute.  It  may  be  allowed 
that  the  structural  principles  of  Gothic  archi- 
tecture were  grasped  more  firmly,  and  fol- 
lowed more  strictly,  by  the  French  than  by 
their  northern  contemporaries  (as,  indeed, 
structural  principles,  in  every  form  of  art, 
always  have  been),  but  that  does  not  justify 
the  conclusion  that  never,  at  any  time  or 
place,  did  they  receive,  a  lead  from  the  rival 
centre.  The  disputed  part  of  Lincoln  Cathe- 
dral is  conspicuous  only  by  its  date.  In 
character  it  fits   absolutely   into   the   English 

pattern.     There  is  nothing  about  it  to  excite  the  feeling,  with  which 

Canterbury  inspires  us  so  strongly,  that  we  are  in  the  outskirts  of 

41 


70. — THE  FIVE   SISTERS, 
YORK. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    71. — WEST    PORCH,    ELY 
CATHEDRAL. 


the  French  Royal  Domain.     The  eastern   transept   at  Lincoln  is  a 
bold  stride  forward  from  anything  which  had  previously  been  done 

in  England,  but  the  stride  is  toward 
the  English  ideal,  and  not  toward 
the  French. 

English  Gothic  and  French  were 
two  dialects  of  one  language,  and 
the  disciples  of  the  one  could  no 
more  express  themselves  in  the  other 
than  a  Berkshire  peasant  can  talk 
Aberdeen.  Whenever  we  have 
external  proof  that  Frenchmen  were 
employed  on  an  English  building, 
we  find  the  work  they  did  was 
French  too.  The  choir  of  Canter- 
bury, for  instance,  is  French  work 
down  to  its  most  intimate  details. 
If  the  choir  of  Ljncoln  had  been 
created  by  men  trained  in  the  traditions  of  the  He  de  France,  it 
would  have  been  the  obvious  sister  of  those  great  French  cathedrals 
which  were  its  predecessors  or  contemporaries  in  date,  and  that  no 
one  has  ventured 
to  call  it. 

The  whole 
question  of  the 
relation  between 
French  and  Eng- 
lish Gothic  re- 
quires to  be  more 
frankly  discussed 
than  it  has  usually 
been  hitherto. 
We  have  no  room 
for  such  a  discus- 
sion, but  even 
such  a  sketch  as 
this  demands  that  fig.  72. -wells,  west  front. 

some  attempt 

should  be  made  to  point  out  where  mistaken  or  at  least  contestable 
ideas  have  crept  in.^ 

I  See  E.  S.  Prior's  Gothic  Architecture  in  Great  Britain  (Bell.  1900)  for  a  just  and  temperate 
statement  of  the  English  case. 

42 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.   73. — CHAPTER  HOUSE,   CHRIST 
CHURCH   CATHEDRAL,  OXFORD. 


Speaking  generally,  what  we  have  in  England  is  a  great  architect- 
ural development  commencing  with  the  Norman  invasion  and 
the  tremendous  supply  of  new  energy 
brought  into  the  country  by  the  con- 
querors. The  first  structures  raised  by 
these  men  were  entirely  similar  to  those 
they  left  behind  in  Normandy,  which 
may,  indeed,  have  owed  some  part  of 
their  character  to  intercourse  with  their 
Anglo-Saxon  neighbors.  As  time  went 
on,  however,  the  genius  loci  began  to 
exert  itself,  the  Norman  blood  to  mix 
with  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  way  of  confronting  aesthetic 
problems  to  modify  the  Norman.  A 
slow  divergence  between  contmental  and 
insular  conceptions  set  in,  until  by  the 
time  that  the  round  arch  was  giving  way 
to  the  pointed,  English  plans,  elevations,  and  details  of  execution 
could  be  distinguished  at  a  glance  from 
French.  This  process  never  ceased. 
From  the  day  which  saw  the  laying  of 
the  first  stone  of  Lanfranc's  Cathedral 
at  Canterbury,  to  the  completion  of 
Henry  VII's  chapel  at  Westminster, 
those  Gothic  principles  which  were 
common  to  all  north-western  Europe 
gradually  clothed  themselves,  in  this 
country,  in  an  English  garment.  In 
France,  the  structural  skeleton  was 
made  the  most  of  and  developed  to  its 
logical  conclusion,  which  often  led  to 
sublimity,  but  sometimes  to  ugliness  and 
even  absurdity.  In  England,  the  archi- 
tect was  over-ready  to  hide  structure 
with  an  irrelevant  skin,  leading  some- 
times to  beauty  with  character,  sometimes 
to  beauty  without  it,  sometimes,  alas !  to 
the  loss  of  both. 

The  choir  and  eastern  transept  of 
Lincoln  Cathedral  (not  the  presbytery  or  "  angel  choir  ")  date  from 
about  1 1 90.     They  were  begun  in  the  episcopate  of  Bishop  Hugh. 

43 


r 

1 

FIG.    74.— CHRIST  CHURCH   SPIRE, 
OXFORD. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


It  has  not  only  been  asserted  that  the  architect  was  a  Frenchman, 
but  one  French  writer  declares  that  he  reproduced  the  design  of  a 
church  commenced  at  Blois  in 
1138!  Such  a  statement  refutes 
itself  ;  and,  moreover,  it  has  now 
been  ascertained  that  the  architect 
was  English,  and  came  of  a  family 
long  settled  in  Lincolnshire.  The 
rebuilding  was  continued  systemat- 
ically by  the  two  immediate  suc- 
cessors of  Bishop  Hugh,  until  the 
completion  of  the  nave  in  or  about 
1240,  by  Bishop  Grostete.  On 
the  whole  Lincoln  Cathedral  may 
be  regarded  as  the  most  important 
specimen  of  the  English  form  of 
the  first  period  of  pointed  Gothic. 
The  nave  is  less  effective  than  it 
might  have  been,  chiefly  through 
the  too  great  width  of  the  bays 
and  the  failure  to  bring  the  vaulting 

shafts  down  to  the  ground.  The  west  front,  also,  imposing  as  it 
is,  must  be  given  up  as  a  mistake.  It  has  no  congruity  with  the 
Cathedral  behind  it.  But  the  great  central  tower  (Fig.  93)  has  few 
rivals  in  England  and  none  elsewhere. 

In  the  quality  most  deliberately  sought  after  by  English  architects, 
Lincoln,  however,  is  excelled  by  Salisbury,  which  shows  happier  ex- 
ternal   proportions,    perhaps. 


FIG.    75. 


-PETERBOROUGH   CATHEDRAL, 
WEST   FRONT. 


than  any  other  Gothic  Cathe- 
dral, either  in  England  or 
abroad.  Nowhere  else  do 
we  find  the  same  harmony 
of  lines  and  masses,  the 
same  gradual  development 
of  beautiful  forms  from  the 
ground  up  to  the  apex  of  the 
spire.  The  design  is  typically 
English,  with  its  unimportant 
west  front,  its  north  porch,  its 
long  double  transepts,  its  square  east  end,  and  the  great  spire  rising 
from  the  crossing.  Up  to  the  tower-base  the  work  is  all  of  one 
period,  between  1 220  and  1 250.     The  spire  belongs  to  the  fourteenth 

44 


FIG.   76. CHOIR  AND   CHAPTER   HOUSE, 

ELGIN   CATHEDRAL. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


century.  It  is  20  feet  lower  than  the  fleche  at  Amiens,  being  only 
404  feet  high  against  the  424  of  the  other:  *'  yet  the  SaHsbury  spire 
is  one  of  the  most  imposing  objects  of  which  Gothic  architecture  can 
boast,  the  other  an  insignificant  pinnacle  that  hardly  suffices  to  relieve 

the  monotony  of  the  roof  on 
which  it  is  placed  "  (Fergus- 
son).  An  American  writer 
puts  it  very  well  when  she 
says  :  "  No  better  church  than 
Salisbury  could  be  fancied  as 
a  base  for  one  of  the  greatest 
spires  in  the  world.  Its  suc- 
cessive portions  so  build  them- 
selves up  toward  the  centre 
that  we  feel  it  would  be  in- 
complete did  a  less  imposing 
pinnacle  surmount  it "  (Mrs. 
FIG.  77. — CHRIST  CHURCH  CATHEDRAL,  DUBLIN.      Van  Renssclacr).     But  Salis- 

bury  was  begun  at  least  20 
years  later  than  the  early  pointed  work  at  Lincoln. 

Although  Lincoln  and  Salisbury  are  its  two  great  full-dress 
examples,  our  First  Pointed  Style  is  to  be  seen,  perhaps,  with  a 
more  intimate  charm  in  many  works,  and  parts  of  works,  of  a  less 
ambitious  kind.  Lack  of  ambition,  perhaps,  cannot  be  predicated 
of  the  north  transept  of  York,  with  its  famous  row  of  lancets  ; 
for  nothing  more  imposing  than  these  Five  Sisters,  as  they  rise  far 
off,  like  majestic  ghosts, 
before  a  visitor  entering 
by  the  south  door,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  whole 
range  of  Gothic  architect- 
ure. Between  the  design 
of  this  transept  end,  and 
the  chapel  of  the  Nine 
Altars  at  the  not  very 
distant  Fountains,  there  is 
much  in  common.  They 
were  built  at  about  the 
same  time  (1205-1245), 
as  also  was  the  more 
famous,  although  not,  I  think,  more  beautiful.  Nine  Altars  at 
Durham.     Still  more  exquisite,  perhaps,  was   the   now   ruined  East 

45 


FIG.    78. — ST.   PATRICK'S   CATHEDRAL,   DUBLIN. 


1 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


end  of  Tynemouth  Abbey,  with  its  graceful  lancets,  and  a  vault 
in  which  ingenuity  and  art  are  happily  combined.  The  South- 
western Porch  of  St.  Alban's  still  exists  in  a  drawing  made  for. 
Sir  G.  Gilbert  Scott  {Mediceval  Architecture,  Vol.  I,  p.  167)  to 
show  what  we  have  lost  through  the  lack  of  worldly  wisdom  in 
Abbot  John  de  Cella  and  the  energetic  business  habits  of  Lord 
Grimthorpe ! 

Finest,  perhaps,  of  all  these  parerga  of  the  Early  English  Style 
is  the  great  Western  Porch  of  Ely  Cathedral  (Fig.  71).  It  is  almost 
too  important  to  be  called  a  Porch,  for  it  has  two  stories,  the  upper 

one  containing  a  room  as  large  as  a 
small  church.  The  Porch  itself,  be- 
tween an  outer  and  inner  doorway, 
measures  about  40  feet  by  30.  Both 
doorways  are  beautifully  proportioned 
and  exquisite  in  detail,  as  are  the  four 
ranges  of  decorative  arcading  and  the 
angle  pinnacles  by  which  the  exterior  is 
enriched.  Another  beautiful,  though 
less  elaborate,  porch  of  about  the  same 
date  is  that  which  forms  the  north 
entrance  to  the  contemporary  cathedral 
of  Wells. 

Wells,  perhaps,  is  more  trying  to 
one's  feelings  than  any  other  English 
cathedral.  It  has  narrowly  escaped 
being  the  most  beautiful  of  them  all. 
Even  as  it  is,  few  things  can  bring 
more  delight  to  the  lover  of  architect- 
ure than  a  pilgrimage  to  this  small 
cathedral,  hidden  away,  with  its  de- 
pendencies, in  a  fold  of  the  Mendips.  But  three  blots  are  upon 
it.  The  nave  design  is  one  of  the  least  happy  ever  conceived 
by  a  Gothic  architect  ;  the  engineer's  device  by  which  the  central 
tower  is  balked  of  its  wish  to  fall  is  hideous  and  destructive, 
while  the  cafe  au  lait  color  of  the  Doulting  stone  fails  to  charm. 
Add  to  all  these,  a  modern  disfigurement  in  the  foisting  of  a 
series  of  what  have  been  called  gigantic  slate  pencils  into  the 
West  Front,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  Wells  has  its  disappointing 
features.  The  West  Front  (Fig.  72)  has  been  extravagantly  praised 
and  unreasonably  abused.  As  a  design  on  its  own  account  it  is  one 
of   the   best   left   us   by    the    thirteenth   century,    the    towers  being 

46 


J. 

j[&    ^  -^J^B^fe-T    1, 

El 

FIG.   79. — ST.   DOLOUGH  S   CHURCH 
CO.    DUBLIN. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.  So. CLOISTER,  KILCONNKL  ABBEY, 

IRELAND. 


especially   fine.     Its  faults   are  a   certain  crowding   together  of   the 

central  parts,   and  the  weakening  of  the  buttresses  by  cutting  into 

their  angles  to  insert  quatrefoil  niches 

for  statues.     Freeman  falls  foul  of  it 

as  a  West  Front,  calling  it  a  sham. 

It   is  difficult  to   see    why.     So    far 

from  being  a  sham  it  is  one  of  the 

comparatively  few  west  fronts,  either 

in  England  or  elsewhere,  which  tell 

the  literal  truth!     But  then   it  must 

be    read  with   candor   and   without 

prejudice.     What,    in    fact,    does    it 

say?     The  towers  are  sitting  securely 

on  terra  firma,  not  bestriding  an  aisle, 

and  they  say  so.     The  central  division  confesses  itself  the  finish  to 

the  nave  behind  ;   the  compartments  between  this  central  division  and 

the  towers  obviously  close  the  aisles  ;   the  three  doorways  are  clearly 

meant  to  give  access  to  human  beings,  not  to  giants.     The  whole 

conception  is  at  once  beautiful  and  logical,  much  more  logical  than 

Notre  Dame,  or  the  cathedrals  of  Rheims  and  Amiens.     The  real 

fault  is  one  shared  with   those  French  examples,  or  at  least  with 

the    two    latter  :     its   richness   is    too    strongly   contrasted   with    the 

comparative  sobriety  of  the  church  to  which  it  acts  as  preface. 

As  an  ensemble,  the  Cathedral  of  Wells  with  its  dependencies  is 
unrivalled,  being  even  more  complete  than  Durham.  The  little 
town  of  ecclesiastical  buildings  includes  the  great  church  itself,  with 

its  Chapter  House,  cloisters, 
and  library,  the  Bishop's 
Palace,  with  its  wall,  moat, 
and  gatehouse,  the  Deanery, 
Archdeaconry,  and  Vicar's 
Close  with  its  own  hall, 
chapel  and  library,  all  lying 
round  a  green  and  timbered 
close  into  which  we  still  make 
our  way  through  beautiful 
and  ancient  gates. 

According  to  tradition,  a 

very  large  number  of  English 

castles  and  early  domestic  buildings  date  from  the  troubled  reign  of 

John  (1  199-1216),  overshadowed  as  it  was  by  its  Papal  interdict. 

St.  Briavel's  Castle,  Monmouthshire,  the  residence  of  one  of  the  Lords 

47 


)I. — GLASGOW   CATHEDRAL. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


of  the  Welsh  Marches,  belongs  to  this  period.  Its  remains  are  pure 
Early  English.  The  Priory  of  Haverfordwest,  with  its  fine  church, 
was  founded  in  1200.  The  rebuilding 
of  the  choir  of  Worcester,  after  a  fire, 
was  begun  in  1 202.  The  Abbey  of  Beau- 
lieu,  Hampshire,  was  founded  by  John 
in  1204.  The  Abbey  of  Halesowen, 
Shropshire,  founded  by  John,  was  begun 
about  1215. 

With  the  accession  of  Henry  III,  in 
1216,  came  a  great  revival.  The  Inter- 
dict by  which  the  faithful  had  been 
oppressed  in  the  previous  reign  was  re- 
moved, and  the  building  of  cathedrals  and 
other  ecclesiastical  monuments  went  on 
as  merrily  as  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Norman  supremacy.  The  king  himself, 
though  feeble  enough  as  a  king,  took  a 
more  personal  interest  in  the  work  of 
his  architects  than  any  previous  monarch 
had  done  since  the  Norman  Conquest.  The  charm  and  dignity  of 
the  greatest  architectural  monument  of  his  reign  is  known  to  be  due, 
in  great  part,  to  his  own  action.     For  Westminster  Abbey  would 


FIG.   82. CHAPEL  OF  THE   NINE 

ALTARS,   FOUNTAINS   ABBEY. 


FIG.    83. — BEVERLEY   MINSTER. 


never  have  been  exactly  as  we  see  it  had  he  not  insisted  on  his 
own  views  as  to  its  style  and  scope.      The  chief  relic  from    the 

48 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 

early  part  of  his  reign  is  Salisbury  Cathedral,  but  the  years  which 
saw  its  erection  also  witnessed  the  building  of  the  cathedral  at 
Wells  (1225-1240),  the  western  transept  of  York  with  the  famous 
Five  Sisters  (1227-1260),  the  choir  of  Southwell  Minster  (1233), 
the  Abbey  at  Netley,  Hants  (1239);  the  Chapel  of  the  Nine 
Altars,  and  the  vault  of  the  nave  at  Durham  (1242)  ;  Elgin 
Cathedral  (1224);  the  early-English  parts  of  Beverley  Minster 
(Fig.  83);  and  Glasgow  Cathedral  (1240-1270).  With  the 
building  of  the  choir,  transepts,  and  Chapter  House  of  Westminster 
Abbey  (1245-1270),  the  Presbytery  of  Lincoln  (1256-1280),  and 
St.  Mary's  Abbey,  York  (1270-1290),  the  First  Pointed,  or  Early 
English,   begins   to   glide  into   the  Second  Pointed,   or  Decorated, 


manner. 


For  Bibliography,  see  Bibliography  to  Chapter  VI. 


«^4   i.J:Xii  i  irBH  l.'.U  i   'iL     ^iul^ 


FIG.    84. — CHAPTER   HOUSE, 
SALISBURY   CATHEDRAL. 


49 


FIG.    85. — EXETER   CATHEDRAL,    LOWER   PART   OF   WEST   FRONT. 


CHAPTER    V 

DECORATED,  OR  SECOND-POINTED,  GOTHIC 
ARCHITECTURE 


f 


There  is,  of  course,  no  line  of  de- 
marcation between  the  first  and 
second  period  of  English  pointed 
architecture.  The  one  develops 
imperceptibly  into  the  other,  and 
it  is  only  by  looking  backward  or 
forward,  in  sharp  perspective,  that 
a  change  in  character  can  be  de- 
scribed. The  most  important  devel- 
opment is  in  windows.  Toward 
the  end  of  the  Early  English 
period,  lancets  had  been  grouped 
into  pairs,  under  a  single  hood 
moulding.  The  tympanum  thus 
established  had  been  pierced,  pro- 
ducing what  is  known  as  plate 
tracery.  The  next  step  was  grad- 
ually to  reduce  the  strips  of  stone 
left  between  these  openings  to  the  slightest  scantling  consistent 
with  safety  and   a  safe  appearance,   producing  what  is  known  as 

30 


FIG.    86. — CHAPTER   HOUSE,    WEST- 
MINSTER  ABBEY. 


DECORATED  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


bar-tracery.  Another  change  was  the  intro- 
duction   of    more    freedom    in    the    general 

design  of  windows.     These  were  sometimes 

square  headed,   and  of  various  proportions 

of  height  to  width.     As  time  went  on  the 

geometrical  forms  to  which  bar-tracery  was 

at    first    restricted    were   changed    for    more 

flowing   lines,    approximating   sometimes   to 

the    later   flamboyant    of    France.     Purely 

ornamental    details   become   richer.     Vaults 

become   more   complicated,    additional   ribs 

being  introduced,  and  finally  the  Heme  vault, 

with  its  wandering  tracery  of  ribs,  makes  its 

appearance.     Apart    from    these    more    or 

less  organic  changes,  the  Decorated  period 

shows  a  general  development  of  all  orna- 
mental motives,   until  the  unsurpassed  richness  of  such  conceptions 

as  the  nave  and  west  front 
of  Exeter  Cathedral,  St. 
Stephen's  Chapel,  at  West- 
minster, and  the  Lady 
Chapel,  at  Ely,  is  reached. 
With    the    full    development 


FIG.    87. — ST.    ETHELBERT'i 
GATE,    NORWICH. 


FIG.    88. — CRYPT,    GLASGOW   CATHEDRAL. 

of  the  second-pointed  style,  Gothic 
architecture  in  England  reached  its 
apogee.  Structural  and  decorative  forms 
came  into  a  fuller  and  happier  relation 
to  each  other  than  they  had  ever  done 
before,  and  motives  were  perfected 
which  would  have  led  to  a  complete 
fusion  between  aesthetic  and  scientific 
requirements  had  English  architects 
united  the  French  sense  of  logic  to 
their  other  good  qualities. 
Each  of  the  three  phases  into  which 

51 


FIG.   89. — DOORWAY,   CHAPTER 
HOUSE,    ROCHESTER. 

e2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   90. — LICHFIELD   CATHEDRAL, 
CHOIR. 


our  Pointed  architecture  has  been  divided  has  its  peculiar  fitness.     The 
Early  English  period,  especially  in  its  later  developments  when  large 

w^indows  with  geometrical  tracery  were 
employed,  was  better  adapted  than 
either  of  its  successors  to  take  charge  of 
a  great  structure  as  a  whole.  The 
Decorated  phase  lent  itself,  as  its 
title  suggests,  to  the  elaboration  of 
what  I  may  call  architectural  jewelry 
— "  purple  patches,"  some  purists 
might  call  them!  —  enriched  vaults, 
doorways,  windows,  tombs,  and  other 
matters  on  which  decoration  might 
be  lavished  without  impropriety. 
As  for  Perpendicular,  it  found  a 
task  thoroughly  suited  to  it  in  the 
provision  of  those  comparatively 
small,  but  gorgeous,  interiors  which 
form  its  chief  glory.  For  Royal 
chapels  nothing  better  has  ever  been 
devised. 

Among  the  larger  achievements  of 
the  Second-Pointed,  or  Decorated,  style,  the  nave  of  York  and 
the  nave  and  choir  of  Exeter  are  perhaps  the  most  important. 
The  proportions  of  the  former  are  not,  however,   quite  happy,  its 

width  being  too  great  for  the  other  ele- 
ments in  the  design.  Exeter,  on  the 
other  hand,  produces  an  excellent  effect, 
although,  mathematically,  its  ratio  of 
width  to  height  differs  but  little  from 
that  of  York.  A  peculiarity  of  Exeter 
is  the  large  share  usurped  by  the  vault 
in  the  total  effect.  A  still  more  com- 
plete illustration  of  the  style  is  afforded 
by  Lichfield  Cathedral,  which  is  almost 
entirely  Second  Pointed.  From  the 
logical  point  of  view,  the  design  of  its 
beautiful  nave  and  choir  is  scarcely 
equalled  in  England.  A  few  feet 
more  of  height  would  have  made  it 
perfect. 
The  central  octagon  at  Ely  belongs 
52 


FIG.  91. — ANGEL  TOWER,  CANTER- 
BURY CATHEDRAL. 


DECORATED  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.   92. — TOMB   OF   EDWARD   II, 
GLOUCESTER   CATHEDRAL. 


to  this  period,  and  affords  a  curious 
example  of  wliat  seems  at  first  a 
very  happy  thought  turning  out  a 
disappointment.  The  weak  point  in 
the  usual  scheme  of  a  cruciform 
Gothic  church  is  the  crossing,  with 
the  tall,  well-Hke  space  it  involves. 
To  cut  off  its  corners  and  turn 
this  square  into  an  octagon,  lighted 
from  four  points,  must  have  seemed 
an  ideal  solution  to  the  architect 
who  hit  upon  it.  But  in  effect 
it  is  not  so.  The  resulting  propor- 
tion between  octagon,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  nave,  choir,  and  aisles,  on 
the  other,  is  not  quite  agreeable, 
and  on  the  whole  it  is  not  surprising 
that,  for  six  centuries,  no  one  repeated 
Alan  of  Walsingham's  invention. 

The    Chapels    of    Merton    College, 
Oxford,    and    of    St.    Etheldreda,    in 

Ely    Place,    Holborn,    the    Lady    Chapel    in    Ely    Cathedral,    and 

St.   Stephen's   Chapel,    at   Westminster,    show   the   Decorated   style 

in  its  application  to  buildings  smaller 

than  cathedrals.     The  most  refined 

in  its  beauty,  of  these  four  chapels, 

is    St.    Etheldreda's,    which    might 

almost  be  referred  to  the  Transition 

from  First  Pointed.     The  two  great 

windows,    East    and     West,    show 

the     latest     phase     of     geometrical 

tracery   at  its  very  best,   while  the 

side   windows,    with   their   connect- 
ing wall  arcades,  or  rather  canopies, 

are    scarcely    less    beautiful.      The 

Chapel     of     Merton     College     has 

much   in   common   with   St.    Ethel- 
dreda's, which,  however,  it  greatly 

excels  in  size.     The  Lady  Chapel 

at    Ely     has     some    of     the     most 

exquisite  detail  ever  carried  out  by 

Gothic  carvers,   but  its  proportions 

53 


FIG.   93. — CENTRAL   TOWER,   LINCOLN 
CATHEDRAL. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   94. — WELLS  CATHEDRAL   AND   CHAPTER 
HOUSE,    FROM   THE   NORTH   EAST. 


are  too  wide  and  low. 
With  a  few  feet  less 
width  and  more  height,  it 
would  have  been  a  gem. 
St.  Stephen's,  Westminster, 
so  far  as  we  may  judge 
from  the  illustrations  in 
which  alone  it  exists,  was 
one  of  the  most  perfect 
works  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  It  united  a  rich- 
ness equal  to  that  of  the 
richest      Perpendicular      to 

beauty  of  proportion,  and  its  loss  is  greatly  to  be  deplored. 
But,  perhaps,  the  most  perfect 

objects    created    by    the    Gothic 

architects  of  this,  or  of  any  ether, 

period,      were      the      polygonal 

chapter  houses  which  glorify  so 

many  English  cathedrals.     These 

ecclesiastical    halls    had    existed 

in   England   from   very   early   in 

the    Norman    activity.     At    first 

they  were  rectangular  chambers, 

from  25  to  35  feet  wide  and  40 

to    60    feet    long.     In     1133    a 

chapter     house     was     begun     at 

Durham,  with  one  apsidal  end. 

The    next    change    was    at    Worcester,    where    a    circular,    vaulted 

chamber  was  built  with  a 
central  support.  This  appears 
to  have  been  immediately  ac- 
cepted as  the  definite  form, 
the  only  further  advance 
being  the  suppression  of  the 
central  column,  which  was 
achieved  at  York  in  the 
last  chapter  house  built  in 
Gothic  times.  The  principles 
of  Gothic  construction  were 
never  more  happily  applied 
than    in    these    adjuncts    to 


.fm.       ^^'        \ 

A**^* 

11  ^1     A 

i<.i  ijis      III 

•■ 

FIG.    95. — ST.    ETHELDREDA  S   CHAPEL, 
ELY    PLACE,    HOLBORN. 


FIG.   96. — MERTON  COLLEGE  CHAPEL, 
OXFORD. 


54 


DECORATED  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


an  English  capitular  church.  They 
are  the  replique  to  the  clearstories  of 
France,  with  the  additional  merit  of 
being  as  indispensable  as  they  are 
beautiful.  The  two  earliest  which 
belong  to  the  transition  period,  Salis- 
bury and  Westminster,'  are  practically 
identical.  Their  window  tracery  is  of 
the  latest  geometrical  stamp.  The  later 
chapter  house  at  Wells,  though  less 
perfect  in  its  proportions  and  less 
scientific  in  structural  expression,  is  more 
*'  felt,"  with  human  touches  which  may 
be  surplusage,  but  are  decidedly  agree- 
able. York 
just  falls 
short  of  per- 

FIG.    97. — LADY    CHAPEL,    ELY.  fcCtlOn.         ItS 

general  pro- 
portions are  fine,  its  windows  magnificent. 

But      the 

cone     in 

which  t  h  e 

vault  cul- 
minates   i  s 

not  a  happy 

device, 

while    t  h  e 

richness    of 

t  h  e      stall 

canopies    is 

affected  for 

t  h  e   worse 

by    their 

plain  gables. 

Like    other 

buildings  of 

t  h  e  same 
class,    it   has   its   charm   diminished   by    the   mistaken    treatment   of 

1  The  Chapter  House  of  Westminster  was  the  Parliament  House  of  the  kingdom  from  shortly 
after  its  erection  until  the  Reformation,  when  the  Commons  migrated  to  St.  Stephen's  Chapel. 
The  Chapter  House  then  became  the  storeroom  of  the  national  archives,  which  it  remained  until 
its  restoration  by  Sir  G.  G.  Scott. 

55 


FIG.    98. — CHAPTER   HOUSE, 
WELLS. 


FIG.    99. — WALTHAM   CROSS 
RESTORATION. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    lOO. — CHAPTER    HOUSE,    YORK 
MINSTER. 


the  one  un-windowed  bay.     Had  the  device  of  opening  this  bay 
and  filling  the  tracery,  which  is  identical  with  that  of  the  windows, 

with  shadow  instead  of  with  solid 
wall,  been  adopted,  all  these  polyg- 
onal chapter  houses  would  have 
been  greatly  improved.  It  would 
have  lessened  the  sense  of  confine- 
ment, introduced  just  the  right  touch 
of  variety,  and  obviated  the  use 
of  expedients  which  are  in  no 
single  instance 
happy. 

The  Eleanor 
Crosses  ( 1 29 1  - 
1293)  belong  to 
the  Decorated 
period,  but  none 
are  now  in  a 
condition  to 
show  their  full  beauty.  The  Martyr's  Memorial, 
at    Oxford,     by     Sir    Gilbert    Scott;     Charing 

Cross,  in  the  fore- 
court of  the  South 
Eastern  Railway 
Station,  by  E.  M. 
Barry ;  and  the 
restoration  of  Wal- 
tham  Cross  itself, 
bad  as  it  is,  give 
some  idea  of  their 
general  aspect.  The 
tombs  of  Edward  II, 
in  Gloucester  Cathe- 
dral, of  Aymer  de  Valence,  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  with  its  enamelled  decora- 
tion, in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  the 
Percy  Shrine,  in  Beverley  Minster,  are 
all  sumptuous  and  well  preserved 
examples  of  the  sepulchral  work  of 
tomb  is  particularly  magnificent,  and 
of  the  exuberant  decorative  carver. 
Edward     III,     at     Westminster,     belongs 

56 


FIG.  lOI. — PERCY 
SHRINE,  BEVERLEY 
MINSTER. 


I 


FIG.    I02. — CHOIR,    CARLISLE 
CATHEDRAL. 

the  time.  The  Percy 
utters  the  last  word 
The     superb     tomb     of 


DECORATED  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


to   the   first   years   of  Third 

rather      than      to      Second 

Pointed. 

Many  other  proofs  of  the 

pecuHar    suitability    of    the 

Decorated     phase     for     the 

enrichment    of    passages    in 

the    greater    designs    of    the 

mediaeval  architects  might  be 

quoted,  such  as  porches  and 

doorways,    of    which    those 

of     St.     Mary's,     Beverley, 

and   the  Chapter  House  at 

Rochester     (Fig.     89),     are 

beautiful     examples  ;     rood- 
screens     and     retables,     like 

those    of    Beverley    Minster 

and     Durham     Cathedral  ; 

windo  vs,  the  finest,  perhaps, 

being  ihe  great  east  window 

of  Carlisle  Cathedral   (Fig. 

1 02) ;  and  spires,  such  as  those 

of  Grantham,  Newark,  and 

Bloxham    Church,    Oxfordshire.     The    Bloxham    tower    and    spire 

are  among  the  most  perfectly  balanced 
designs  carried  out  in  the  style. 

Other  important  monuments  of  the 
Earlier  Decorated  period,  in  their  ap- 
proximately chronological  order,  are: 
St.  Ethelbert's  Gateway,  Norwich 
(1273-1278),  the  choir  and  transept 
of  Exeter  Cathedral  (1279-1292),  the 
hall  of  the  Bishop's  palace.  Wells 
(1280-1292),  Dorchester  Abbey, 
Oxfordshire  (1280-1300),  the  east 
end  of  Carlisle  Cathedral  (1292-1340), 
the  south  porch  of  St.  Mary  Redclyffe, 
Bristol  (1292),  the  tomb  of  Arch- 
bishop Peckham,  at  Canterbury  (1292), 
the  cloisters  and  part  of  south  transept 
with  rose  window,  at  Lincoln  (1296- 
1306),  and  the  central  tower  of  Wells 


FIG.    103. — LICHFIELD    CATHEDRAL,    WEST 
FRONT. 


FIG.    104. — CHAPTER   HOUSE, 
YORK   MINSTER. 


57 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


1320-1337).  Of  the  later  period,  parts  of  Melrose  Abbey 
1327-1390),  the  spire  of  Salisbury  Cathedral  (1331),  the  great 
east  window  of  York  Minster  (1338),  the  Hall  at  Penshurst 
(1341),  the  destroyed  St.  Stephen's  Chapel  at  Westminster  (1350- 
1365),  parts  of  Windsor  Castle  (1360-1375),  with  its  crypt,  and 
the  choir  of  Selby  Abbey  (1375),  are,  or  once  were,  among  the 
best  examples.  The  great  east  window  of  York  affords  the  chief 
example  of  an  arrangement  in  the  glass  walls  of  Gothic  cathedrals, 
which  might,  with  advantage,  have  been  carried  farther  than  it  was. 
For  halt  its  height  the  tracery  is  double,  the  inner  and  outer  skins 
being  connected  and  mutually  stiffened  by  horizontal  cross-pieces. 
Such  a  contrivance  not  only  increases  the  actual  strength,  it  has  aesthetic 
value  also,  and  if  skilfully  used  would  remove  that  appearance  of 
weakness  which  is,  for  instance,  a  defect  in  such  beautiful  things  as  the 
soaring  clearstories  of  France.  At  York  it  has  the  additional  and 
not  unimportant  advantage  of  allowing  the  triforium  passage  to  be 
carried  across  the  window. 


For  Bibliography,   see  Bibliography  to  Chapter  VI. 


I 


FIG.    105. — PENSHURST   PLACE,    KENT. 


58 


FIG.  io6. — ST.  George's  chapel,  Windsor:    partly  a  restoration. 

CHAPTER  VI 

PERPENDICULAR.    OR    THIRD    POINTED.    GOTHIC 
ARCHITECTURE 


107. — TOMB    OF    EDWARD    III, 
WESTMINSTER   ABBEY. 


The  Third  Pointed,  or  Perpendicu- 
lar, variety  of  English  Gothic  is  easily 
distinguished.  It  first  declared  itself 
by  the  somewhat  timid  intrusion  of 
vertical  lines  among  the  curves  of 
decorated  tracery.  These  vertical 
lines  gradually  increased  in  number 
and  assertiveness,  until  they  became 
the  obvious  characteristic  of  an  age. 
Other  features  are  the  nearly  uni- 
versal use  of  square  hood-mouldings 
over  doorways,  the  four-centred 
arch,  the  finmg  down  of  mouldings 
until  they  become  little  more  than 
reeds,  the  stiltmg  of  the  bases  of 
columns  and  shafts,  and  the  almost 
total  abandonment  of  foliage  motives 
in  the  carving  of  capitals,  corbels,  etc. 
59 


^^     OF  THE     ^y 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


Io8. — WINCHESTER  CATHE- 
DRAL, NAVE. 


terior,  which  shall  overlie  the  inner  struct- 
ure and  withdraw  it  from  our  knowledge. 
The  form  of  continental  art  to  which  it 
may  most  fairly  be  compared  is  the  Belgian 
Gothic  of  the  fifteenth  century,  which  is, 
however,  more  akin  to  second  pointed  in 
detail.      The    spirit    of    Perpendicular    was 


The  Perpendicular  style  is  essentially 
English.  It  embodies  a  complete  break- 
ing away  from  continental  traditions  and 
answers  to  predilections  which  have 
been  characteristic  of  English  art  ever 
since  it  began  to  have  a  character  of  its 
own  at  all.  Perpendicular  does  not 
produce  its  effect  by  confessing,  or  rather 
declaring,      its 

own  inner  con-  ' 

stitution,  and 
showing  how 
well  that  is 
adapted  to  the 
work  in  hand, 
as  does  the  best 
French  work  of 
t  h  e  thirteenth 
century.  It  aims 
at  a  rich  and 
picturesque  ex- 


f    ^ 

^K 

I 

t_ 

C'k^ 

109. — WINCHESTER: 
PLAN. 


FIG.    no. — DIVINITY   SCHOOL,   OXFORD. 


60 


antagonistic  to  plain 
surfaces.  It  particularly  dis- 
liked the  spandrils  left  by 
the  pointed  arch  when  it  cut 
through  a  wall,  and  got  rid 
of  them  partly  by  flattening 
the  arch  and  so  diminishing 
their  extent,  partly  by  filling 
them  with  elaborate  panelling. 
It  next  attacked  the  vault, 
and  by  successive  devices 
transformed  the  pyramidal 
severeys  of  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries  into  those 
inverted  cones  covered  with 


PERPENDICULAR  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 

stone  lace,  which  make  up  what  is  known  as  fan  vaulting.     And 
here    it    may    incidentally    be    remarked    that    the    attitude    of    the 


FIG.    III. — KING  S  COLLEGE  CHAPEL,   CAMBRIDGE. 


FIG.    112. — HENRY   VII  S   CHAPEL, 
WESTMINSTER    (eXTERIOR). 


13. — HENRY   VII  S   CHAPEL,    WEST- 
MINSTER (interior). 


French  and  English  architects  toward  vaults  is,  perhaps,  more 
characteristic  than  anything  else  they  did.  The  French  architect 
was    so    impressed    by    the    fitness    of    the    vault    for  its  immediate 

61 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    114. — MAGDALEN   COLLEGE,    OXFORD: 
CLOISTER    QUAD. 

the  architecture  below.  The  most 
daring  French  vauhs,  such  as  that 
of  Amiens,  look  mean,  their  great 
height  notwithstanding,  beside  a 
comparatively  modest  performance 
like  the  vault  of  Exeter,  to  say 
nothing  of  such  a  miracle  in  stone  as 
the  vault  of  King's  College  Chapel, 
at  Cambridge  (Fig.  1 20). 

Important  examples  of  the  Per- 
pendicular period  abound,  although 
no  building  of  the  first  magnitude 
was  erected  wholly  in  the  style. 
Among  the  earlier  specimens,  be- 
tween 1377,  the  year  of  the  acces- 
sion of  Richard  II,  and  1422,  when 
Henry  VI  came  to  the  throne,  the 
most  important  are  (in  chronological 


purpose  that  he  confined 
himself  to  its  structural  de- 
velopment, carrying  that  to 
completion  and  there  stay- 
ing his  hand.  His  English 
rival  was  less  thorough  in 
his  appreciation  of  the  vault 
as  an  engineering  contriv- 
ance, but,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  made  more  use  of 
it  as  an  aesthetic   climax  to 


-THE   BEAUCHAMP   CHAPEL, 
WARWICK. 


FIG.    116. — CANTERBURY   CATHEDRAL. 


62 


order),  the  tomb  of  Edward 
III  (1377),  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  the  nave  and  west- 
ern transepts  of  Canterbury 
Cathedral  (1378-1411),  the 
ruined  Chapter  House  of 
Howden,  Yorks  (1380- 
1400);  New  College,  Ox- 
ford (1380-1390);  the 
Church  of  St.  Mary's,  War- 
wick  (1380-1390);  the 
Cloisters  of  Gloucester  Ca- 
thedral   (1381-1412)    (the 


PERPENDICULAR  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


FIG.    117, — MAGDALEN   COLLEGE 
CHAPEL,    OXFORD. 


earliest  fine  example  of  fan  vault- 
ing) ;  Thornton  Abbey,  Lincoln- 
shire (1382-1390);  the  tombs  of 
Richard  11  and  his  queen,  Anne, 
in  Westminster  Abbey  (1394), 
erected  by  Richard  himself  on 
Anne's  death  ;  the  tower  of  How- 
den  Church  (1405)  ;  the  nave  of 
Winchester  Cathedral  (1394- 
1410)  ;  parts  of  Canterbury  Cathe- 
dral (1410-1430)  ;  the  upper  part 
of  the  walls  and  the  great  timber 
roof  of  Westminster  Hall  (1400); 
and  the  great  east  window  of  York 
Minster  (1405-1408). 

Between  the  accession  of  Henry 
VI  in  1422  and  the  death  of 
Henry  VII  in  1509,  and  even  for 
the  first  thirty  years  of  the  reign 
of  Henry  VIII,  the  Perpendicular 
style  persisted  without  showing  many 

63 


FIG.    118. — NEW   COLLEGE   CHAPEL, 
OXFORD    (restoration). 


fig.  119.— all  souls  chapel,  oxford 
(restoration). 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


signs  of  the  coming  transformation. 
The  chief  buildings  wholly  or  partly 
erected  during  this  century  and  more 
are  :  the  transepts  and  tower  of 
Merton  College  Chapel  (1424);  the 
Cloisters  at  Norwich  (1430)  ;  South 
Wingfield  Manor  House,  Derbyshire 
(1433-1455);  Tattershall  Castle, 
Lincolnshire  (1433-1455)  ;  Fother- 
ingay  Church,  Northants  (1440); 
part  of  St.  John's  College,  Oxford 
(1437)  ;  the  Beauchamp  Chapel, 
Warwick  (1440);  King's  College 
Chapel,    Cambridge    (1440);     St. 


FIG.    I20.— KING  S   COLLEGE   CHAPEL, 
CAMBRIDGE. 

Mary's  Church  choir,  Oxford 
(1443-1450);  Sherborne  Abbey 
Church,  Dorsetshire  (1445-1450); 
The  Divinity  School,  Oxford  (1445- 
1455)  ;  Bishop  Beckington's  build- 
ings at  Wells  (1450-1465);  the 
Central  Tower  of  Gloucester  Cathe- 
dral (1454- 


FIG.    121. — TOMB   OF  THE   EARL   OF 
WARWICK,    WARWICK. 


FIG.    122. — MERTON    COLLEGE 
CHAPEL,   OXFORD. 


1460)  ;  the  North-western  Tower  of  Croy- 
land  Abbey  (1470);  Crosby  Hall,  London 
(1470);  the  Choir  Screen  in  York  Min- 
ster (1475?);  Magdalen  College,  Oxford 
(1478-1492);  the  Reredos,  St.  Alban's 
Cathedral  (1480?);  and  St.  George's 
Chapel,  Wmdsor  (1481-1508).  For  the 
reigns  of  Henry  VII  and  Henry  VIII, 
we  may  add  to  this  list:  the  nave  and 
aisles  of  St.  Mary's  Church,  Oxford 
(1488);  the  central,  or  Angel,  tower  of 
Canterbury  Cathedral  (1490-1525);  the 
tower  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford 
(1492-1505);  Bath  Abbey  Church  (1500- 
1540);  Henry  VII's  Chapel,  Westminster 
64 


I 


PERPENDICULAR  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


(1503-1520);  the  nave  of  Melrose  Abbey  (1505);  the  Vault  of 
St.  George's,  Windsor,  and  of  King's  College  Chapel,  Cambridge 
(1508-1515);    Thornbury    Castle,    Gloucestershire    (1510-1522); 


PW»T3i'"  1 

IHIHI^T              ,  i^*^^i^3 

FIG.    123. — SOUTH   PORCH, 
GLOUCESTER    CATHEDRAL. 


FIG.    124. — WALLINGFORD   SCREEN, 
ST.   ALBAN'S. 


Earts  of  Brasenose  and  Corpus  Christi  Colleges,  Oxford  (1512-1517) 
.ayer  Marney  Hall,  Essex  (about  1520);  Compton  Winyates 
Warwickshire  (about  1520);  and  the 
Hall  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford  (1524- 
1 529),  and  much  of  Hampton  Court. 

The  finest,  perhaps,  of  the  earlier 
examples  of  developed  Perpendicular 
is  the  nave  of  Winchester  Cathedral 
(1390-1410).  The  transformation  of 
die  old  Norman  nave  into  the  present 
one  has  been  often  illustrated  in  books 
on  architecture  (Fig.  108).  The  pro- 
portions of  the  three  original  Norman 
stories  do  not  account  for  what  is  un- 
doubtedly the  chief  fault  of  the  Per- 
pendicular design,  the  too  great  height 
of  the  main  arches  and  the  abolition  of 
the  triforium.  The  interior  of  King's  fig.  125 
College  Chapel,  Cambridge  (Fig.  120) 
may  be  fairly  compared  to  a  cathedra 
nave,  few  of  which  approach  it  in  scenic  effect.  As  a  free 
aesthetic  conception  and   example  of   pure   skill   in  construction,   it 

65  F 


ST.  FRIDESWIDE  S  SHRINE, 
CHRIST  CHURCH  CATHEDRAL,  OX- 
FORD. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    125. — DURHAM:    CENTRAL 
TOWER. 


can  hold  its  own  with  any  building  ever  raised  ;  but  if  we  look 
at   it   from    a    French    standpoint,    and    demand    that    neither    skill 

nor  aesthetic  designing  shall  hide  the 
scheme  of  structure,  it  is  more  open 
to  fault-finding.  And  yet,  after  all,  it 
is  not  easy  to  establish  a  sound  logical 
basis  for  rejecting  the  one  system  and 
accepting  the  other.  If  we  insist  that 
the  actual  method  of  construction  shall 
be  visible  to  any  intelligent  eye  survey- 
ing the  interior  of  a  Gothic  cathedral, 
we  are  at  once  met  by  the  difficulty 
of  accounting  for  the  stability  of  vault 
and  clear-story.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  allow  a  detailed  examination  of 
the  whole  building  before  demanding 
a  verdict,  the  vault  of  Henry  VII's 
Chapel  may  justify  itself  as  easily  as 
that  of  Amiens.  We  cannot  well  lay 
it  down  that  the  intelligent  eye  may  go  outside  and  reassure  itself 
with  the  sight  of  the  flying  but- 
tresses, at  Amiens,  and  may  not 
visit  the  roof  to  constater — why 
have  we  no  convenient  word  for 
that  in  English? — the  part  played 
by  the  great  transverse  ribs  at 
Westminster  ! 

The  strictly  architectural  parts 
of  St.  George's,  Windsor  (Fig.  1 06), 
are  inferior  to  the  same  things  at 
King's  College  and  at  Westminster. 
The  nave  and  choir  arcades  are 
thin  and  poor,  and  the  vault  monot- 
onous. These  faults  have  been 
avoided  by  the  architect  of  Henry 
VII's  Chapel,  who  has  produced 
what  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most 
successful  example  of  thorough- 
going Perpendicular  in  its  latest 
phase     (Fig.    113).     The     interior 

of  his  chapel  only   wants   two   things   to  be  a  perfect   gem   in   its 
way,   viz.:    Stained   glass   in   the    windows  of    the   apse,   and   the 

66 


FIG.    127. — BEVERLEY   MINSTER, 
WEST   FRONT. 


I 


PERPENDICULAR  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 

absence  of  the  bronze  screen  round  the  King's  tomb.     This  screen, 
fine   in   itself,    goes   far   to   destroy    the   proportions   of   the  chapel, 


1 

1 

^  ^                         J     ITlill     "     --                          ^ 

-:ia  -l^wris          >..■.. 

FIG.    128. — YORK   MINSTER.      SOUTH   SIDE. 


while  it  hides  Torrigiano's  beautiful  monument.  Outside,  the  chapel 
is  hardly  so  successful  (Fig.  112).  The  clear-story  and  flying 
buttresses  are  finely  conceived,  but 
the  panelling  of  the  lower  story, 
with  its  apparent  attempt  to  de- 
ceive the  spectator  as  to  how  much 
is  wall  and  how  much  window,  is 
less  satisfactory.  In  the  Divinity 
School  at  Oxford  (Fig.  110),  the 
quantitative  relation  between  the 
interior,  as  a  whole,  and  its  parts 
— especially  in  the  number  and 
scantling  of  the  vaulting  ribs — is 
unusually  happy  ;  but  the  eye 
would  have  been  better  pleased 
had  the  trace  of  the  main  arches 
supporting  the  vault — they  are 
more  than  ribs — been  less  angular 
at  the  imposts,  a  remark  which 
also  applies  to  the  blind  arches  at 
the  ends  of  the  hall. 

The  fan  vaulting,  which  exists 
in  greater  or  less  development  in  all 
these  buildings,  is  the  most  famous  and  typically  English  feature  of 

67  F  2 


FIG.    129. YORK   minster:    CHOIR, 

LOOKING    EAST. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  130. — COMPTON  WINYATES,  WARWICKSHIRE. 


the  style.  It  first  appeared 
in  its  full  perfection  in  the 
cloisters  of  Gloucester  Cathe- 
dral. Its  origin  was  simple. 
It  occurred  to  some  architect 
or  builder  that  the  inverted 
pyramids,  of  which  the 
severeys  of  a  groined  vaylt 
had  previously  consisted, 
could  be  lightened  by  cutting 
off  their  angles.  This  readily 
suggested  the  substitution  of  a  cone  for  a  pyramid,  while  the 
absorption  of  the  groins  al- 
lowed the  ribs  to  be  freely 
used  as  decorative  media. 
The  Gloucester  vault  is  not 
only  the  earliest,  it  is  one  of 
the  best  examples  of  the 
method.  Others  (besides 
those  in  the  chapels  already 
described)  are  to  be  found 
in  St.  Lawrence's,  Eve- 
sham, in  Bath  Abbey,  in 
the  retrochoir  at  Peter- 
borough, in  the  choir  of 
Oxford  Cathedral  (Fig.  22), 
and  the  neighboring  staircase  of  the  college  hall,  in  the  remark- 
able Perpendicular  church 
at  Fotheringay,  and  in  a 
large  number  of  other  build- 

Many  tine  towers  were 
carried  out  in  "  Third 
Pointed."  Among  the  best 
may  be  named  the  towers 
of  Howden  Church,  Yorks, 
of  Merton  (Fig.  122), 
and  Magdalen  Colleges, 
Oxford,  of  Fountains 
Abbey  (Fig.  50),  of  St. 
Mary's,  Taunton,  and  All 
Saints,   Derby;    of  the  churches  at  Boston,  Wrexham  (Fig.    134), 

68 


FIG.    131. — WESTMINSTER   HALL. 


FIG.    132. GATEHOUSE,    THORNTON   ABBEY. 


PERPENDICULAR  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


^ 


\4^^' 


3 1  y  » 


FIG.    133. — ILMINSTER   CHURCH. 


and  Gresford  (near  Chester), 
and  the  central  towers  of 
Canterbury  (Fig.  91),  Glouces- 
ter (Fig.  137),  York,  and 
Durham  Cathedrals  (Figs. 
128  and  126).  Fine  spires 
are  hardly  so  numerous. 
The  best,  perhaps,  are  those 
of  St.  Michael's,  Coventry, 
and  St.  Mary's,  Oxford, 
restored  as  they  are,  while 
the  "  crowns  "  of  St.  Nicho- 
las's, at  Newcastle,  and  St. 
Giles's,  Edinburgh,  are  the  best 
examples  of  a  motive  which 
occurs  elsewhere,  in  steeples, 
market  crosses  (Fig.  132), 
etc. 

The  customary  East  End 
of  an  English  church  lends 
itself  to  the  presence  of  a  fine  background  for  the  High  Altar. 
Consequently  we  find  many  of  our  cathedrals  and  chapels  closed  at 
the  East  by  a  magnificent  rere- 
dos,  in  which  sculpture  and 
decorative  architecture  unite 
to  produce  a  gorgeous  effect. 
Unhappily  the  statues  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases  are 
modern  restorations,  the  various 
furies  which  have  swept  over 
English  religion  having  made  a 
clean  sweep  of  the  original 
figures.  Perpendicular  lent  it- 
self to  the  enrichment  of  such 
screens.  The  finest  now  re- 
maining are  the  two  very  similar 
ones  at  Winchester  and  St. 
Albans  (Fig.  1 24,  the  Walling- 
ford  screen,  lately  spoilt  by  the 
introduction  of  figures  in  a  yellow 
stone  which  accords  but  ill  with 
the  white  architecture),  and  the 


69 


FIG.    134. — ST.    GILES  S   CHURCH,    WREXHAM. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


splendid  East  Ends  of  three 
college  chapels  at  Oxford,  New 
College,  Magdalen,  and  All 
Souls'  (Figs.  117,  118,  and 
119).  Besides  these  Eastern 
glories,  the  choir  of  an  Eng- 
lish cathedral  is  sometimes  shut 
off  from  the  nave  by  a  sump- 
tuous barrier,  which  carried  the 
Rood,  the  best  remaining  ex- 
ample being  in  York  Minster. 

The  style  has  also  left  many, 
splendid  tombs.  The  exquisite 
resting-place  of  Edward  III  in 
Westminster  Abbey  dates  from 
the  very  beginning  of  the  Per- 
pendicular period  (Fig.  1 07)  ; 
that  of  Richard  II  and  his 
Queen  from  somewhat  later; 
the  tombs  of  Gower,  the  poet, 
in  Southwark  Cathedral,  of 
Henry  IV  and  Archbishop 
Warham,  at  Canterbury,  of 
Thomas  Fitzalan,  Earl  of  Arun- 
del, at  Arundel,  of  Rich- 
ard,   Earl   of   Warwick,    at    Warwick    (Fig.    121),    of    Humphrey, 

Duke  of  Gloucester,  at  St.  Albans,  the 

shrines    of    St.    Frideswide,    at    Oxford 

(Fig.    125),   and  William  of  Wykeham, 

at  Winchester,   and   the  very  late  semi- 
Renaissance      Salisbury      Chantry,       in 

Christchurch,    Hampshire,   may   also   be 

particularized. 

Before     leaving     Perpendicular,     and 

with    it    Gothic    architecture,     a    word 

must   be    said    about    a   feature    no    less 

English    than    the    fan    vaults.     I    mean 

those  magnificent  timber  roofs  in  which 

our  carpenters  of   pre-Reformation   days 

expressed  their  courage  and  skill.     The 

finest   is   the   roof   of   Westminster   Hall, 

which  may  fairly  be  called  the  greatest 

70 


FIG.    135. — GATEWAY,    CANTERBURY. 


FIG.    136. — LAYER   MARNEV 
TOWERS. 


PERPENDICULAR  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE 


creation  of  the  carpenter  the  world 
has  to  show  (Fig.  131).  Here  the 
principles  (the  main  transverse  mem- 
bers) become  trefoil  arches,  enriched 
with  carved  angels  at  their  cusps, 
and  filled  in  and  connected  above  by 
open  timber  tracery.  Slight  varia- 
tions of  the  same  construction  were 
used  for  the  roofs  of  Hampton  Court 
Hall,  and  the  Hall  of  Cardinal  Col- 
lege, now  Christ  Church,  at  Oxford. 
At  Hampton  Court,  however, 
much  of  the  ornamental  detail  is 
pure  Renaissance,  some  of  it,  as  will 


FIG.  137. — CENTRAL  TOWER,  GLOUCESTER 
CATHEDRAL. 


be  found  noticed  elsewhere, 
bearing  marks  of  Holbein's  in- 
tervention. Many  other  fine 
timber  roofs  date  from  this 
period,  such  as  those  of  Trunch 
Church,  Norfolk,  and  St. 
Peter's  Mancroft,  Norwich. 
Akin  to  these  magnificent 
timber  roofs  are  the  great 
screens  which  exist  in  so  many 
many  cases,  however,  these  are 
both  in  spirit  and  detail.     They 


FIG.    138. — CLOISTERS   OF    GLOUCESTER 
CATHEDRAL. 

English  Halls  and  Chapels.  In 
rather  Renaissance  than  Gothic, 
are  very  numerous,   and  often  of 


FIG,    139. — HAMPTON   COURT   PALACE,      WEST   FRONT, 


71 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

a  richness  which  recalls  the  exuberance  of  similar  things  beyond  the 
Pyrenees,  rather  than  anything  nearer  home. 

Some  of  the  finest  examples  are  in  the  churches  of  Holbeton,  Har- 
berton,  Dunster,  Atherington,  Bovey  Tracey,  Cartmel,  Kenton, 
Croscombe,  Staverton,  Llananno,  Strensham,  and  in  King's  College 
Chapel,  Cambridge,  the  Middle  Temple  Hall,  and  Wadham  College, 
Oxford.  This  list  includes  screens  of  all  periods,  down  to  the  com- 
mencement of  the  full  Renaissance. 

BIBUOGRAPHY  TO  CHAPTERS  IV,  V,  and  VI 

Scott,  Sir  G.  G.,  Lectures  on  the  Rise  and  Development  of  MeJiceval  Architecture,  1879. 
Moore,  C.  H.,  Development  and  Character  of  Gothic  Architecture,  1890.  Prior,  E.  S.,  History 
of  Gothic  Art  in  England,  1900;  King,  R.  J.,  Handbooks  to  the  English  Cathedrals  (Murray). 
Winkles,  B.,  Cathedrals  of  England  and  Wales,  1836-1842.  Dollman,  F.  T.,  and  Jobbins.  J.  R.. 
Ancient  Domestic  Architecture  in  Great  Britain.  Freeman,  E.  A.,  History  of  the  Cathedral 
Church  of  IVells,  1870.  Billings,  R.  W.,  Architectural  Antiquities  of  the  County  of  Durham, 
1846.  Billings,  R.  W.,  Baronial  and  Ecclesiastical  Antiquities  of  Scotland.  Britten,  J.,  Cathe- 
drals, 1821-1835.  Britton,  J.,  Architectural  Antiquities  of  Great  Britain,  1807-1814.  Brayley, 
E.  W.,  and  Britton,  J.,  History  of  the  Ancient  Palace  .  .  .  at  Westminster,  1836.  Gough,  R., 
Sepulchral  Monuments  in  Great  Britain,  1  796.  Longman,  W.,  The  Three  Cathedrals  Dedicated 
to  St.  Paul,  London,  1873.  Scott,  Sir  G.  G.,  Gleanings  from  Westminster  Abbey,  1863.  Wickes, 
C.,  Spires  and  Towers  of  the  Mediaeval  Churches  of  England,  1853—1859.  Bond,  Francis, 
Screens  and  Galleries  in  English  Churches,  1908.  Henfrey,  H.  W.,  and  Watney,  H.,  East 
Anglian  Rood  Screens.  Strange,  E.  F.,  Painted  Rood  Screens  in  East  Anglia.  Ditchfield,  P.  A., 
The  Cathedrals  of  Great  Britain,  \902.  Fergusson,  ].,  History  of  Architecture,  1874;  Archceolo- 
gia,  1773,  el  seq.  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Scotland,  Transactions,  1852,  et  seq.  Paley,  F.  A., 
Manual  of  Gothic  Mouldings,  London,  1 891 .  BloAram,  M.  H.,  The  Principles  of  Gothic  Archi- 
/ec/ure,  London,  1882.  Morris,  William,  Gothic  Architecture,  i^ondon,  1893.  Scott,  Sir  G.  G., 
An  Essay  on  the  History  of  English  Church  Architecture,  London,  1881 .  Willis,  R.,  The  Archi- 
tectural History  of  Cambridge,  1886.  Fallow,  P.  M.,  Cathedral  Churches  of  Ireland,  1894. 
MacGibbon,  Castellated  and  Domestic  Architecture  of  Scotland,  Exlinburgh,  1887;  ditto.  Ecclesi- 
astical Architecture  of  Scotland,  E<Jinburgh,  1895. 


I 


FIG.    140. — MARKET   CROSS, 
SALISBURY. 


72 


FIG.    141. — LONGLEAT,    WILTS. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  TUDOR  CHAOS 


The  last  song  of  Gothic  in  England  gradually  died  away  between 
the  accession  of  Henry  VIII  in  1309  and  the  final  creation  of  the 
English  variety  of  Renaissance  architecture  by  Inigo  Jones  rather 
more    than    a    century    later.     Between    the   latest    achievements   of 

Perpendicular,  as  an  organized  sys- 
tem, and  the  earliest  works  of  Jones, 
lay  a  sort  of  architectural  whirlpool, 
in  which  fragments  of  Italian  and 
German  Renaissance  shouldered  the 
wreckage  of  English  Gothic  and 
threw  up  that  peculiar  mixed  style 
which  has  again  been  so  effectively 
used  during  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century. 

Between  the  last  building  in  which 
Gothic  ideas,  as  understood  in 
England,  governed  the  whole,  say 
between  the  erection  of  Wolsey's 
Hall  at  Christ  Church  and  the  com- 
plete surrender  to  new  principles 
from  Southern  Europe  under  the 
lead  of  Inigo  Jones,  England  was  covered  with  buildings  in  what  is 
called   the  Tudor  Style,   about  which   it  is  very  difficult  to  write 

73 


FIG.    142. — HALL,    HAMPTON   COURT. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


1-43. — CEILING   OF  BISHOP  WEST  S   CHAPEL,    ELY. 


systematically.     The  characteristic  of  the  period,  speaking  broadly, 
was    the    use    of    motives,    from    both    the   Gothic    and   the   Latin 

traditions,  in  a  merely 
picturesque  fashion,  with 
little  or  no  regard  to  their 
structural  origin.  Tempted 
by  the  renewal  of  national 
comfort  and  prosperity, 
after  the  destructive  period 
beginning  with  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses  and  ending 
with  the  tyranny  of  Henry 
VIII,  had  passed  away, 
Italian,  Flemish,  and  Ger- 
man artisans  came  to  Eng- 
land in  large  numbers. 
Under  such  conflicting  in- 
fluences architecture  be- 
came chaotic.  The  period  was  scarcely  one  of  transition  in  the  true 
sense.  Forms  did  not  slowly  develop  from  each  other;  they  were 
mixed  up  with  new  forms,  the  mixture  sometimes  ending  in  a  super- 
ficial harmony,  sometimes  in  mere  eccentricity,  but  never  in  a  real 
organic    unity.      Things    were    not    to    be    straightened    out    until 

a  man  of  genius  arose  to  do  it.  

Inigo  Jones  was  to  do  for 
English  art  after  the  Tudor  con- 
fusion what  Napoleon  did  for 
French  society  after  the  turmoil 
of  the  early  Revolution. 

The  earliest  monument  of  im- 
portance in  which  the  Gothic 
influence  meets  the  Latin  is 
Wolsey's  palace  at  Hampton 
Court.  The  Cardinal  began 
work  in  1515.  His  architects 
and  artisans  were  mostly  Eng- 
lish, but  Italians  were  employed 
on  some  of  the  ornament.  It  is 
known  that  Giovanni  da  Majano 
made    the    terra-cotta    roundels 

with   busts  of  Roman  Emperors,   which   appear  on  the   two  outer 
towers.     Giovanni  found    terra-cotta  in  use  in  England — at    Layer 

74 


[44. — CEILINO    OF    WOLSEY  S   CLOSET, 
HAMPTON    COURT. 


THE  lUDOR  CHAOS 


FIG.    145. — AUDLEY    END,    ESSEX. 


Marney,  Sutton  Place,  and  elsewhere — but  his  work  shows  no  sign 

of  native   influence.     And   this   we   almost  

invariably  find  to  be  the  case.  Wherever 
we  have  documentary  evidence  of  the 
employment  of  foreigners  on  an  English 
building,  we  find  the  work  they  did  was 
foreign  also.  They  did  not  come  here  to 
accept  English  notions,  but  to  carry  out 
their  own.  We  have  reason  to  believe 
that  other  Italians  besides  Giovanni  da 
Majano  worked  at  Hampton  Court,  but  the 
ceiling  (Fig.  144)  of  the  room  known  as 
Wolsey's  closet,  which  has  been  usually 
accepted  as  Italian,  seems  rather  to  belong 
to  that  type  of  Renaissance  ornament  which 
Holbein  used  with  such  felicity.  Unless  I 
am  much  mistaken,  this  ceiling  is  not  the 
only  place  in  which   the  effect  of  his  example,   at  least,  is  to  be 


FIG.    146. — GATE   TOWER, 
TRINITY    COLLEGE. 


FIG.    147. — HATFIELD   HOUSE. 

75 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.     148. — HARDWICKE    HALL,    DERBYSHIRE. 


traced    in   Wolsey's   palace.     Torrigiano's    tomb   of   Henry   VII    at 
Westminster,   within  the    elaborate    but    destructive    English    grille, 

is  entirely  Italian.  Imported 
Italians  were  responsible  for 
many  other  fine  creations, 
among  them  the  magnificent 
tomb  destined  first  for  Car- 
dinal Wolsey  and  secondly 
for  Henry  VIII,  but  used — 
what  survived  of  it — for  the 
sepulture  of  Nelson  nearly 
three  centuries  later  ;  this 
was  the  work  of  Benedetto 
da  Rovezzano.  Such  things 
do  not  belong  to  the  history 
of  English  art,  however,  and  need  not  be  discussed  at  any  length. 
The  whole  movement,  indeed,  can  scarcely  be  considered  as  belong- 
ing to  our  true  national  development,  but  in  such  a  manual  as  this 
its  chief  productions  will  have  to  be  noted,  nevertheless. 

Many   conditions   helped   to   make   the   period   incoherent.     The 

foreign  immigrants  came  as 
artisans,  or  at  most  as  what  we 
should  now  call  sub-contractors, 
not  as  masters.  In  no  single 
case  has  proof  been  found  that 
a  foreign  architect  was  intrusted 
with  the  chief  control  of  an 
important  work.  The  instance 
usually  given  is  that  of  Longleat 
(Fig.  141)  and  John  of  Padua. 
But  even  there  we  have  no  evi- 
dence but  tradition,  and  on  this 
doubt  is  cast  by  the  aspect  of 
the  work  itself  ;  for  Long- 
leat is  an  English  house,  with 
a  certain  Latin  purity  in  the 
design  of  its  details.  The  archi- 
tect may  have  been  either  John 
Shute,  or,  possibly,  though  not 
probably,  Robert  Smithson,  who 
appears  on  the  accounts  as  clerk  of  the  works.  Immediately  on 
the    completion    of    Longleat,    Smithson    was    intrusted    with     the 

76 


-HARDWICKE    HALL,    PRESENCE 
CHAMBER. 


i 


THE  TUDOR  CHAOS 


erection   of   Wollaton   Hall,    Notts,    which   resembles   Longleat    but 
slightly.     Decisive  differences  are  the  greater  exuberance  of   detail 


FIG.    150. — MONTACUTE,    SOMERSETSHIRE. 

in  the  latter,  and  the  comparative  inferiority  of  its  proportions,  both 
as  a  whole  and  in  parts.  But  if  we  suppose  that  John  of  Padua 
acted  as  adviser  either  to  Shute  or  Smithson,  we  shall  account  for 
both  the  appearance  of  Longleat  and  the  tradition  as  to  its  architect. 
Mr.  Reginald  Blomfield  (who  believes  Shute  to  have  built  Longleat) 
suggests  the  Salisbury  Chantry,  in  Christ  Church,  Hants,  as  a 
good  example  of  the  way  in  which  work  was  divided  between 
English  builders  and  foreign  ornemanistes.  There  the  structural 
parts  are  ordinary  late  Perpendicular  in  design  and  workmanship, 
while  the  vertical  bands  on  the  engaged  shafts,  the  horizontal  bands 
on  the  architraves,  and  the  spandrils  above  the  niches,  are  enriched 
with  Renaissance  ornament  of  the  finest  Italian  design  and  execution. 
Foreign  influences  in  England  during  this  century  vary  locally. 
The  number  of  French  im- 
migrants was  small.  Scarcely 
any  work  bearing  signs  of  a 
French  origin  can  be  pointed 
to,  the  chief  exceptions  being 
the  Oxenbrigge  Monument 
in  Bride  Church,  Sussex, 
and  some  capitals  in  the  old 
church  at  Chelsea  (Blom- 
field). The  Italian,  German, 
and  Flemish  immigrants,  on 
the  other  hand,  spread  them- 
selves over  the  country,  al- 
though in  a  partial  and  tentative  way,  the  Italians  clinging  to  the 
districts  easily  reached  from  the  Channel  ports,  the  Flemings  and 

77 


FIG.    151. — LONG    GALLERY,    CHIRK   CASTLE. 

(Partly  Restoration.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    152. — GALLERY,    HADDON    HALL. 

The 

most  important,  and  one  of  the  earhest,  of 
the  Germans,  was  Holbein,  who  left  a  few 
casual  finger-prints  on  English  building  as  he 
passed  to  his  painting  room.  Most  of  the 
odds  and  ends  of  architecture  ascribed  to  him, 
however,  offer  no  recognizable  proofs  of  his 
authorship.  The  Northern  Gate  at  White- 
hall, which  stood  opposite  to  where  Gwydyr 
House  now  stands,  and  has  figured  so  often 
in  books  as  "  Holbein's  Gate,"  was  a 
thoroughly  English,  late  Gothic  design, 
similar  to  the  towers  at  Hampton  Court, 
the  Gates  of  Trinity  and  St.  John's,  at 
Cambridge,  and  many  other  contemporary 
structures.  The  Southern,  or  King  Street, 
Gate,  which  stood  where  Downing  Street  at 

pres- 


Germans  showing  their  pref- 
erence for  the  eastern  coun- 
ties and  the  midlands. 

Throughout  the  latter  part 
of  Henry's  reign  the  Italians 
in  England  steadily  dimin- 
ished, while  the  Flemings 
and  Germans  grew  in  num- 
ber. This  adjustment  was 
in  harmony  with  the  politico- 
ecclesiastical  situation,  and 
partly      resulted      from      it. 


FIG.  153. — HERTFORD  TOMB, 
SALISBURY   CATHEDRAL. 


FIG.    154. — LONGFORD   CASTLE,    WILTS. 


78- 


ent  debouches  on  White- 
hall, was  probably  the  one 
designed  by  Holbein.  No 
quite  satisfactory  reproduc- 
tion has  survived,  but  Ver- 
tue's  engraving  of  1  725,  made 
from  a  drawing  of  his  own 
and  published  two  years 
after  the  site  was  cleared, 
shows  that  the  King  Street 
Gate  was  entirely  chatacter- 
istic  of  the  Augsburger,  both 


THE  TUDOR  CHAOS 


in  detail  and  in  general  de- 
sign. Another  trace  of  his 
activity,  hitherto  unrecog- 
nized, is  to  be  found,  I  think, 
in  the  beautiful  pendants  to 
the  timber  roof  of  the  great 
hall  at  Hampton  Court. 
These  were  supplied  by  one 
"  Richard  Rydge,  Kerver," 
of  London,  (Law),  but  in 
their  design  the  griffe  du 
lion  is  unmistakable. 

The  reign  of  Elizabeth 
saw  a  great  influx  of  Ger- 
nftans  and  Flemings,  whose 
influence — that  of  the  Ger- 
mans at  least — was  not  for 
our  good.  To  their  ex- 
ample may  be  traced  the 
nonsensical  ornament  and 
defective  proportion  which 
were  characteristic  of  Eliza- 
bethan building.  Their  in- 
fluence was  predominant 
throughout  the  reign.  'The 
screens  and  mantel-pieces 
of  old  Charter  House,  of 
Longleat,  and  of  Hatfield, 
the  ponderous  entrance 
porch  of  Audley  End,  the 
strapwork  gables  ...  of 
Wollaton,  the  barbarous 
notion  of  using  Tuscan  and 
other  columns  as  chimneys, 
the  shapes  of  men  and 
women  ending  in  balusters, 
all  show  the  heavy  hand, 
the  merely  mechanical  in- 
stinct of  the  German  work- 
man ;  and  architectural  de- 
sign being  at  a  low  ebb  at 
this  period,  or  being  rather. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    159.-CHAPEL,   KNOLE. 


one  should  say,  in  an  undeveloped  state,  people  who  built  houses 
had  recourse  to  that  last  refuge  of  the  destitute,   the  pattern  book, 

that  is,  folio  pages  of  design  done 
into  space,  designs  not  made  in 
relation  to  specific  conditions,  but 
made  as  merely  academical  or 
commercial  exercises  by  some  facile 
designer  of  tailpieces  and  title 
pages.  ...  It  was  unfortunate 
that  the  treatises  most  in  use  in 
England  at  this  time  were  German 
rather  than  Italian.  ...  It  is  evi- 
dent, in  fact,  that  the  English 
builder-architect  of  the  time  of 
Elizabeth  was  a  somewhat  ignorant 
and  ill-educated  person,  and  did 
not  follow  better  models  simply  be- 
cause he  was  ignorant  of  their  existence  "  (Reginald  Blomfield). 

The  Germans  and  Flemings,  like  the  Italians  before  them, 
were  employed  in  more  or  less  subordinate  capacities.  No 
building  of  importance  was  left  entirely  in  their  hands,  except, 
perhaps,  Sir  Thomas  Gresham's  Exchange.  For  this  the  design 
came  obviously  from  the  Low  Countries.  Both  in  detail  and  in 
general  conception  it  breathes 
Antwerp,  and  is  distinguished 
by  a  restraint  and  grace  which 
are  not  to  be  found  in  more 
Teutonic  creations.  The  Ger- 
man invaders  are  mainly  respon- 
sible for  the  frequently  pictu- 
resque but  still  oftener  barbarous 
designs  of  mantel-pieces,  chim- 
neys, tombs,  and  other  objects 
giving  a  purchase  to  ill-re- 
strained invention,  which  have 
come  down  to  us  in  such 
numbers  from  the  reigns  of 
Elizabeth  and  her  immediate 
successor.  A  good  example 
of      the      characteristic      designs 

to    which    this   Anglo-Teutonic    art    gave    birth    is    that    for    the 
Hertford  monument  in  Salisbury  Cathedral,  in  which  details  often 

80 


FIG.    160. GALLERY,    POWIS    CASTLE. 


J 


THE  TUDOR  CHAOS 


FIG.    l6l. — ROOM   FROM   SIZERGH   CASTLE. 

(Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.) 


absurd     in     themselves     are    coordinated     into     a     not    unpleasing 
whole  (Fig.  1 53). 

Englishmen  in  the  position  of  what  we  should  now  call  architects 
are  not  to  be  certainly 
identified  for  any  one  of 
the  great  Elizabethan  build- 
ings. The  identification  of 
Robert  Smithson  as  the 
master  mind  at  Wollaton  is 
perhaps  the  least  problem- 
atical. Many  works  have 
been  ascribed  to  John 
Thorpe,  who  was  most  likely 
only  a  surveyor.  Thomas 
Holt,  who  is  credited  with 
much  work  at  Oxford, 
including  the  Tower  of  the 
Five  Orders,  in  the  old 
Schools,  was  an  excellent  carpenter.  On  the  other  hand.  Sir 
Thomas  Tresham  was  probably  the  architect,  in  our  sense,  of  several 
charming  buildings  erected  at  his  expense.  John  Abel  was  a  pictu- 
resque if  somewhat  coarse  worker  in  the  half-timber  method  popular 
in  the  richly  wooded  shires  of  the  West. 
Thomas  and  Robert  Grumbol,  and  John 
Westley,  of  Cambridge,  close  the  list  of  not- 
able master  builders  who  worked  in  methods 
popular  before  Inigo  Jones  (Blomfield). 

The  Tudor  chaos,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, produced  no  ecclesiastical  buildings 
of  importance.  After  the  sequestration  of 
the  monasteries  (1534-9),  church  building 
in  England  was  in  practical  abeyance  until 
the  destruction  of  eighty-nine  London 
churches  by  the  Great  Fire  ( 1 666)  opened 
a  field  to  the  genius  of  Wren. 

The  chief  monuments  are  country 
houses  ;  they  include  Longleat  (Fig.  141); 
Montacute  (Figs.  1 50,  1 68)  ;  Chadcote  ; 
Burghley  ;  parts  of  Longford  Casde 
(Fig.  154),  Wilts;  Wollaton  House,  Notts; 
Holland  House ;  Audley  End  (Fig.  1 45) ;  Kirby  House ;  Aston 
Hall,    Birmingham;    Apethorpe   Knole  (Figs.  155-9);   Buckhurst; 

81  G 


illtllll    tAfc 


iHiiiu'ismi 


FIG.    162. — OLD    HOUSE, 
CHESTER. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    163. — MORETON    OLD    HALL,    LANCASHIRE. 


Holdenby;    Kirkby  Hall  (Fig.  204);    Loseley;    Littlecote;    Hard- 
wicke  (Fig.    1 48)  ;    Hatfield  (Fig.    1 47)  ;    and  Ampthill.     Among 

destroyed  monuments  the 
most  important,  perhaps, 
were  Nonsuch  Palace,  which 
only  survives,  however,  in 
some  more  or  less  incom- 
prehensible engravings,  the 
first  Royal  Exchange  already 
mentioned,  and  Old  Somer- 
set House.  In  all  these 
buildings,  more  or  less,  con- 
tending influences  can  be 
traced,  the  German  making, 
on  the  whole,  for  confusion  and  meaningless  enrichment,  the 
Flemish  and  Italian  for  reticence,  the  apropos,  and  general  good 
taste. 

With  a  very  few  exceptions  the  earliest  timber  and  half-timber 
buildings  still  extant  in  the  country  date  from  the  day  of  the  Tudor 
monarchs.  In  several  half-timber  houses  domestic  Perpendicular 
may  be  found  in  such  purity  as  it  possessed,  but  the  great  majority 
belong  to  the  Tudor  style  as  well  as  dynasty.  The  most  ambitious 
examples  are  to  be  found  in  Lancashire,  where  Samlesbury,  Speke 
Hall,  Moreton  Old  Hall  (Fig.  163),  and  other  fine  manor  houses 
show  what  could  be  done  with  the  method.     Some  beautiful  work 

is  to  be  seen  in  Agecroft  Hall, 
in  the  same  county.  The 
western  counties  are  full  of 
good  half-timber  work,  the  best 
specimens  being  in  Chester, 
Shrewsbury,  Dunster,  and  other 
towns.  Lyemore  (Fig.  164), 
Montgomeryshire,  once  the  home 
of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cher- 
bury,  is  a  fine  manor  house. 
Ockwells  Manor  House,  Berk- 
shire, is  an  exquisite  specimen, 
very  beautiful  in  detail,  dating 
from  the  reign  of  Henry  VII. 
The  eastern  and  south-eastern 
counties  are  rich  in  similar  work,  which  is  to  be  found  at  Ightham, 
Harrietsham,   Wingham,   Bury   St.   Edmund's,   Lavenham,   Saffron- 

'     82 


FIG.    164. — LYEMORE,    MONTGOMERYSHIRE. 


THE  TUDOR  CHAOS 


^* 

ii\ 

KTiHi 

1^1 

11 

FIG.    165. GLAMIS   CASTLE,    FORFARSHIRE. 


Walden,  Newark,  etc.  Scraps  of  finely  carved  timber  work — 
corner-posts,  doors,  windows — frequently  crop  up  through  later 
construction,  adding  their 
modest  contribution  to  the 
fragmentary  evidence  on 
which  our  belief  in  the 
artistic  capacity  of  our  for- 
bears has  to  depend  in  so 
many  directions. 

In  spite  of  their  bastard 
birth,  the  creations  of  this 
chaotic  period  have  a  de- 
cidedly English  stamp.  Ex- 
travagant in  detail  as  they 
often  are,  they  betray  little  of  that  passion  for  detail  for  its  own  sake 
which  marks  the  Teuton  ;  while  the  Latin  readiness  to  make  almost 
any  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  symmetry  finds  little  more  than  an 
enfeebled  echo. 

Domestic  architecture  both  in  Scotland  and  in  Ireland  was  semi- 
military,  and,  so  far,  mediaeval,  much  later  than  in  England.  Its 
remains  in  Scotland  are  remarkably  interesting.  They  show  strong 
signs  of  that  French  influence  which  was  so  long  an  important  factor 
north  of  the  Tweed,  but  in  spite  of  this  they  have  a  decided 
character  of  their  own.  It  is  difficult  to  find  a  mediaeval  building  in 
Scotland  in  which  there  is  no  evidence  of  aesthetic  ambitions. 
Even  in  the  rudest  border  pele,  the  mouldings  of  a  doorway  or  a 
chimney-piece,  the  cor- 
belled support  of  a 
pepper-box  turret,  will 
show  that  the  man  who 
built  it  had  a  corner  in 
his  mind  for  art.  And 
even  where,  by  rare  ex- 
ception, no  such  details 
are  present,  some  dignity 
of  proportion — as  in  Both- 
well  Castle,  for  instance 
— will  preclude  the  de- 
duction that  the  claim  of 
art    was    unknown    and 

ignored.     A  true  instinct  is  betrayed,   too,   by  the  use  of  the  sky- 
line.   The  main  seat  of  effect  in  a  building  is  its  upper  part,  and 


FIG.    166. HOWTH    CASTLE,    COUNTY    DUBLIN. 


83 


G  2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    167. CHIRK   CASTLE,    OSWESTRY. 


this  the  Scottish  architects  understood  as  well  as  those  of  the  New 
York  sky-scrapers.  The  exact  dates  of  Scottish  castles  are  often 
difficult  to  fix.  A  large  proportion  are  still  inhabited,  and  have  been 
continuously  added  to  and  modified  for  centuries.  But  their  type  is  well 
known  and  is  a  variation — sometimes  more  effective  than  its  models 

— of  the  chateaux 
built  in  France  while 
security  was  still  the 
main  objective.  As 
dwellings,  the  Scottish 
mediaeval  castles  were 
by  no  means  so  rude 
as  is  often  asserted. 
Of  this  we  may  con- 
vince ourselves  by  those 
arrangements  for  the 
convenience  of  their 
occupants  which  can  still  be  traced.  *'  Garderobes,"  for  instance,  are 
at  least  as  numerous  and  well  placed  as  in  a  modern  house.  Warmth 
was  well  provided  for,  fire-places  and  chimneys  being  plentiful.  A 
favorite  method  of  construction  was  to  divide  the  total  height  into 
two  or  three  stories  by  tunnel  or  groined  vaults,  and  to  sub-divide 
these  again  into  four  or  six  by  timber  floors.  Good  examples  of 
Scottish    castles    of    various    types — some    ruined,    some    still    alive 

and  active — are 
Borthwick,  Both- 
well,  Crichton, 
Castle  Campbell, 
Caerl  averock, 
Cawdor,  Craig- 
millar,  Crosra- 
guel,  Linlithgow 
Palace,  Dirleton, 
Glamis  (Fig. 
165),  Fyvie,  and 
those  North- 
western Towers 
of  Holyrood  in 
which  occurred 
the  few  romantic 
and  tragic  events  in  the  life  of  the  famous  old  Palace. 

In   Ireland    the   signs   of    art   in   mediaeval   domestic    architecture  I 

84 


FIG.    168. — MONTACUTE,    SOMERSETSHIRE. 


THE  TUDOR  CHAOS 

chiefly  consist  of  a  characteristic  sky  line  and  pleasant  general  pro- 
portion (Howth  Castle,  Fig.  166).  The  countless  castles  are,  as  a 
rule,  mere  ruins,  or  so  embraced  and  hidden  by  later  accretions 
that  their  arrangements  are  impossible  to  follow.  A  considerable 
number  of  modern  houses  in  Ireland  have  an  ancient  castle  for  their 
core.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  find  two  modern  drawing  rooms  sep- 
rated  from  each  other  by  a  wall  eight,  ten,  or  even  fifteen  feet  thick, 
the  explanation  being  that  some  ancient  stronghold  of  the  O'Conors 
or  O'Tooles  forms  a  concealed  backbone  to  the  modern  house.  In 
comfort  they  were  little  inferior,  as  a  rule,  to  those  of  Scotland, 
but  are  much  poorer  in  those  slight  but  unmistakable  traces  of  an 
aesthetic  bent  which  surprise  and  please  the  eye  in  the  northern 
country  ;  which  is  curious,  seeing  how  the  Irish  excelled  in  their 
early  ecclesiastical  architecture  and  in  many  other  walks  of  art. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Taylor,  H.,  Old  Halls  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire.  1884.  Clayton,  J.,  Ancient  Half-timber 
Edifices  of  England,  1846.  Nash,  J.,  Mansions  of  England.  1839-49.  Shaw.  H.,  Details  of 
Elizabethan  Architecture.  1839.  Archaeologia,  1773,  etc.  Transactions  of  the  Society  of 
Antiquaries  of  Scotland,  1852,  etc.  Blomfield,  Reginald,  A.R.A.,  A  History  of  Renaissance 
Architecture  in  England.  1500-1800,  1897.  Gotch,  J.  A.,  Early  Renaissance  Architecture  in 
England.  1901.  Gotch,  J.  A.,  Renaissance  Architecture  in  England,  folio,  2  vols.  Gamer,  T., 
The  Domestic  Architecture  of  England  during  the  Tudor  Period,  1908.  Davie,  W.  G.,  and 
Green,  W.  C.,  Old  Cottages  and  Farmhouses  in  Surrey,  1908.  Law,  Ernest,  History  of  Hamp- 
ton Court  Palace,  1885-91. 


riG.    169. — MAPPERTON,    FROM   BLOMFIELD. 


85 


FIG.   170. — ST.    PAUL  S,    FROM   LUDCATE   HILL. 

(Picturesque  view,  to  show  the  fitness  of  the  design  for  the  site.) 


86 


FIG.  171. — WHITEHALL.      CENTRAL  BLOCK  OF  NORTH   FRONT,    AS  DESIGNED  BY   INIGO  JONES. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ENGLISH  RENAISSANCE-INIGO  JONES 
AND  SIR  CHRISTOPHER  WREN 


I 


The  beginning  of  Renaissance  architecture  in  England  as  a  definite, 
reasoned-out  method  of  design  dates  from  the  first  works  of  Inigo 
Jones.  Jones  was  born  in  1 5  73  and  spent  much  of  his  time  in  early 
manhood  on  the  Continent.     His  English  career  began  in  1 604,  but 

it  was  not  until  1615  that  he 
became  Surveyor-General  of  the 
Works,  and  not  until  1619  that 
he  made  his  first  scheme  for  the 
rebuilding  of  the  Palace  of  White- 
hall. This  first  project  was  the 
comparatively  modest  Palace  de- 
signed for  James  I,  to  be  elabo- 
rated many  years  later  into  the 
magnificent  conception  completed 
for  Charles  I,  which  has  been  a 
mine  of  architectural  ideas  ever 
since.'  Of  these  plans  the  only 
part  ever  carried  out  was  the  Banqueting  House,  which  is, 
perhaps,  as  satisfactory  a  solution  of  an  artistic  problem  as  we 
can  point  to.  Internally,  it  was  to  be  a  state  dining  room, 
with  a  provision  for  spectators:  externally,  a  link  between  build- 
ings of  more  complex  purpose,   more  elaborate  design,   and  much 

'  There  is  a  conflict  of  evidence  as  to  which  of  the  two  designs  was  the  earlier,  but  on  the  whole  the 
probabilities  seem  to  favor  the  conclusion  that  the  more  splendid  design  was  the  later. 

Q7 


FIG.    172. — ST.    PAUL  S,    COVENT   GARDEN 
(INIGO    JONES.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


greater  elevation.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that,  given 
the  conditions,  Jones's  second  Whitehall  is  the  most  astonishing 
creation  by  a  single  mind  that  the  history  of  architecture  has  to 
show.  It  was  the  work  of  a  man  who  went  to  Italy,  learnt  the 
grammar  of  his  art  there,  and  returned  to  this  country  to  throw 
off  a  scheme  for  a  palace  larger  than  any  other  in  the  world  ;  at 
once  more  varied  and  m.ore  homogeneous  ;    inspired  with  a  national 

W 

TIT 


iJ  °i. 


ffi 


j(=:)-:r  i 


FIG.   173. — GROUND  FLOOR  PLAN  OF  INIGO  JONES'S  WHITEHALL. 

(Scale:  about  300  feet  to  the  inch.) 

feeling  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  no  national  tradition  existed  to  help 
him  ;   and  grandly  monumental  in  its  total  effect. 

Confining  our  attention  to  the  more  ambitious  of  the  two  projects  : 
the  Palace  of  Whitehall  was  designed  to  cover  a  site  about  1200 
feet  long  by  900  feet  wide,  that  is,  rather  more  than  four  times  the 
ground  occupied  by  the  existing  Houses  of  Parliament.  It  was 
to  contain  seven  inner  courts,  of  which  the  great  central  quadrangle, 
running  through  the  whole  from  North  to  South,  was  to  be  nearly 
800  feet  long  by  about  380  feet  wide — this  court,  surrounded  by 
magnificent  and  happily  varied  pavilions  measuring  from  80  to  110 
feet  in  height,  would  have  had  no  rival  in  the  world.  West  of  it 
there  were  to  be  three  courts,  the  central  one  being  circular  and 
extremely  rich  in  its  details.     Eastward,  too,  there  was  to  be  a  trio 

S8 


INIGO  JONES  AND  WREN 


},*^^M\)/I      : 


*•["""  I  I'*'  ,-|(>««ii  irt  I  ;i  1 1  I  1,1 4 1,  1 1  I  I  I  ,|,, 


FIG.    174. — INIGO   JONES'S   WHITEHALL,   FROM  MIILLER  S   ENGRAVING. 

of  courts,  all  quadrangular.  The  only  detail  in  tlie  whole  design 
which  has  ever  been  subjected  to  much  adverse  criticism  was  the 
proposed  completion  of  the  sky  line  with  a  pair  of  pepper-box 
turrets    in    the    centre    of    each 


facade.  But  Jones,  like  Wren, 
and  Alfred  Stevens,  and  other 
great  artists,  always  improved  his 
designs  in  the  execution,  and  no 
doubt  anything  which  weakened 
the  project  of  Whitehall  would 
have  been  weeded  out  before 
the  last  stone  was  laid.  Had 
Charles  I  only  contrived  to  keep 
his  head  on  his  shoulders,  London 
would  have  possessed  in  White- 
hall a  secular  pendant  to  St. 
Paul's  which  would  have  sufficed, 
in  itself,  to  remove  the  reproach 
of  architectural  poverty  so  long 
brought  against  it.  And  the 
project  was  no  dream,  no  "  Castle 
in  Spain."  It  was  an  under- 
taking determined  on  and  ac- 
tually begun,  which  only  mis- 
carried through  events  unconnected  with  itself.  I  have  called 
the  plans  for  Whitehall  a  mine  of  architectural  ideas.     Those  who 

89 


FIG.  175. — ASHBURNHAM  HOUSE  (STAIRCASE). 
INIGO   JONES. 

(From  Blomfield.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


are  familiar  with  its  details  may  recognize  the  source  of  many  little 
passages  of  design  about  the  streets  of  English  cities.     One  of  the 

most  flagrant  instances  is  afforded 


FIG.    I7O. — GREENWICH   HOSPITAL. 
(INIGO    JONES.) 


by  Sir  George  Gilbert  Scott's 
forced  essay  in  Renaissance  at 
Westminster.  In  the  Home 
Office  block  much  of  his  archi- 
tecture consists  of  slices  con- 
veyed from  the  facades  of  White- 
hall, and  spoilt  by  atrocious 
detail.  The  difference  between 
the  masculine  power  of  Jones 
and  the  weakness  of  Scott, 
working  blindly  in  a  style  he 
had  never  assimilated,  is  shown 
in  startling  fashion  by  comparing 

their    basements  ; — that    of    Whitehall    is    superb    in    the    combined 

beauty   and   vigor    of    its   rusticated    arcade,    which   was    born    to 

support  the  great  wall  above  it  and  to  do  it  with  grace.     Scott's 

panelled  lower  story  is  deplorably  weak  and  crushed. 

Over  the  other  works  of  Inigo  Jones  there  has  been  much  dispute. 

A   large   number   of   buildings — Heriot's   Hospital,    Edinburgh,    St. 

Mary's  Porch  (Fig.   177)  and  the  Inner 

Quadrangle  of  St.  John's  College,  Ox- 
ford,    the     Exchange     at     Copenhagen, 

among    others — have    been    ascribed    to 

him   without   evidence   and    against   the 

probabilities.     But    parts    of    Greenwich 

Hospital,    of    Wilton    House,    Salisbury 

(including  the  two  splendid  rooms  known 

as  the  Double  and  Single  Cubes),  Rayn- 

ham    Park,    Norfolk,    part    of    Cobham 

Hall,    Kent   (Fig.    186),    the   church   of 

St.  Paul,  Co  vent  Garden,   Ashburnham 

House,    Westminster,    with    its    beautiful 

staircase   (Fig.    175),  and  the  Watergate 

to   York   House,   in   the   Strand,    which 

still   stands,   half  buried,   at   the  foot  of 

Buckingham  Street,  are  from  his  designs. 

"  His    extraordinary    capacity    is    shown 

by    the    success    with    which    he    freed    English    architecture    from 

the  imbecilities  of  the  German  designers,  and  started  it  on  a  line 

90 


FIG.  177. — PORCH  OF  ST.  MARY  S, 

OXFORD. 

(?  INIGO   JONES.) 


INIGO  JONES  AND  WREN 


FIG.    178. — ST.    PAUL'S   CATHEDRAL.      (WREN.) 


of    fresh    development,    borrowed,    it    is    true,    from    Italy,    yet    so 

successfully    adapted    to    English    traditions,    that    it    was    at    once 

accepted  and  followed  by 

the  best  intelligence  of  the 

country    for    the    next 

hundred    and    fifty    years. 

His    especial    strength    lay 

in    his    thorough    mastery 

of  proportion,  his  contempt 

for    mere    prettiness,     and 

the  rare  distinction  of  his 

style.     His  own   theory  of 

architecture    was    that,    in 

his  own  words,   it  should 

be  'solid,  proportional  ac- 
cording to  the  rules,  mas- 
culine    and      unaffected.' 

No    man    has    ever    more 

completely  realized  his  own 

ideal   of   his    art "    (Blomfield).     To    this    I    must    add    that   Jones 

had  that  final  and  most  decisive  mark  of  all  great  artists,   that  he 

could  pour  his  own  personality  into  every  detail  of  his  work  ;    so 

that,    apart   from    all    objective    tests,    it    recommends    itself    by    an 

individual  unity  of  character  which  raises  every  project  of  his  into 

the  rank  of  a  creation. 

The    years    immediately    succeeding    Jones's    death    are    poor    in 

architectural    monuments.     His    pupil    and    assistant,    John    Webb, 

did  a  great  deal  of  work, 
but  most  of  it  has  little  dis- 
tinction. At  one  time  he 
was  engaged  in  superintend- 
ing the  execution  of  his 
master's  designs  at  Wilton 
House,  at  Amesbury,  at  Ash- 
burnham  House  in  Dean's 
Yard,  Westminster,  and  prob- 
ably at  Gunnersbury  and 
Greenwich.  The  best  per- 
haps of  his  own  designs  is 
that  for  Thorpe  Hall,   near 

Peterborough,   built  for  Oliver  St.   John.     It  has  much  of  Jones's 

dignity  and  felicity  of  proportion. 

91 


[79. — EASTERN   QUADRANGLE,    HAMPTON 
COURT.      (WREN.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    l8o. — TRINITY   COLLEGE 
CHAPEL,   OXFORD.      (WREN.) 


But    English    Renaissance    architecture    made    no    move    which 

need    be    chronicled    here    between    the    death    of    Jones    and     the 
first  activities  of  Wren. 

Christopher  Wren  was  born  in  1632. 
His  father  was  Dean  of  Windsor  and  his 
uncle,  Matthew  Wren,  Bishop  of  Ely.  He 
himself  was  a  pupil  of  Busby,  at  West- 
minster, a  fellow  commoner  of  Wadham 
College,  Oxford,  and  a  fellow  of  All 
Souls'  by  the  time  he  was  twenty-one.  In 
youth  his  interests  were  aroused  by  all 
those  forms  of  science  in  which  mathe- 
matics, and  mechanical  ingenuity,  and  skill 
in  adapting  abstract  knowledge  to  practical 
ends,  could  be  made  to  play  a  part.  It 
was  not  until  1 66 1 ,  when  he  was  twenty- 
nine  years  of  age,  that  he  was  brought 
into  practical  contact  with  architecture.     In 

that   year   he   was   appointed    assistant   to   Sir   John   Denham,    the 

Surveyor-General  of  Works.      Soon  afterward  he  built  the  Chapel 

of    Pembroke   College,    Cambridge,    and    the   Sheldonian   Theatre, 

Oxford.     The  Ashmolean  Museum  has  also  been  ascribed  to  him, 

but  there  is  reason  to  believe  it  was  the  work  of  a  forgotten  architect 

called  Wood.     His  best  design  in  Oxford  is  the  interior  of  Trinity 

College  Chapel  (Fig.    180).     Wren's  great 

opportunity,    the    greatest   ever    afforded    to 

an  architect,  came  with  the  fire  of  London 

in    the    autumn    of     1666.     He    drew    up 

a   magnificent   plan   for    the   laying   out   of 

the  city  on  new  lines,  which  was  defeated 

by  English   conservatism   and  other  forces. 

He  rebuilt  the  Cathedral  and  no  fewer  than 

fifty-four  churches  within   the  sound   of   its 

bells.     The  most  famous  of  his  churches  is  St. 

Stephen's,  Walbrook  (Fig.    181),  in  which 

extraordinary    dignity    of    effect    has    been 

reached  by  simple  though  ingenious  methods. 

It  has  been  suggested   that  certain  Eastern 

domes   gave   Wren    a   hint   for   that   of   St. 

Stephen's.     This   is   improbable,    especially 

as  a  church  existed  nearer  home,  viz.,  the  Church  of  St.  Anne,  at 

Haarlem,  which  embodied  exactly  the  same  idea.     If  St.  Stephen's 

.    92 


FIG.    l8l. — ST.   STEPHEN'S, 
WALBROOK.       (wren.) 


INIGO  JONES  AND  WREN 


be  the  best  of  Wren's  small  churches,  his 
best  steeple  is  certainly  that  of  Bow  Church 
(Fig.  182),  Cheapside,  in  which  the  problem 
of  adapting  quasi-classical  detail  to  a  vertical 
general  conception  is  solved  with  unique 
success.  The  domes  and  colonnades  of 
Greenwich  Hospital  (Fig.  184),  forming  one 
of  the  most  effective  conceptions  Renais- 
sance architecture  has  produced,  the  Monu- 
ment of  London,  St.  Bride's,  Fleet  Street 
(Fig.  183),  the  eastern  block  of  Hampton 
Court  Palace  (Figs.  179,  185),  the  library 
of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  Temple 
Bar — barbarously  carted  away  in  1878 
— are  also  among  the  triumphs  of  Wren. 
But  his  name  will  always  be  more 
loudly  connected  with  St.  Paul's  than 
with  any  other  of  his  works,  albeit  the 
Cathedral  of  London  is  by  no  means  so 
faultless  as  some  of  the  designs  just  men- 
tioned. St.  Paul's  was  actually  begun 
1672.     The    design    carried    out    was 


m 


FIG.   182. — BOW  CHURCH, 
CHEAPSIDE.      (wren.) 


not    the    first    prepared    by    the    architect. 

Two  others    require  to   be  mentioned.     One  is 

P  embodied  in  a  wooden  model  now  lodged  in  an 
upper  chamber  of  the  Cathedral,  the  other  in 
a  paper  scheme  sealed  by  the  King  and  known 
as  the  "warrant"  design.  The  model  shows  a 
church  far  inferior  to  the  existing  one  in  its 
_  external    elevations,  but    superior  to   it    in   plan 

and  internal  arrangements  generally.  It  was  re- 
jected through  the  influence  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  helped,  perhaps,  by  the  secret  inclinations 
of  the  King,  as  ill  adapted  to  the  ritual  of  the 
Roman  Church.  The  second,  or  "  warrant " 
design,  could  not  have  been  seriously  put  for- 
ward. No  architect  in  his  sober  senses  could 
have  proposed  to  carry  it  out.  It  was  possibly 
intended  to  amuse  the  Court  while  Wren  was 
elaborating  the  conception  with  which  the  world 
is  now  so  familiar.  But  the  secret  history  of 
these  designs  is  unknown,  and  we  may  suspect  that  the  intelligence 

93 


FIG.    183. — ST.   bride's, 
fleet  STREET.    (WREN.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

and  humor  of  Charles  II,  who  found  himself  between  Rome  and 
London,  between  his  brother  and  the  French  Court,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  English  people  on  the  other,  had  a  good  deal  to  do 
with  the  comedy  of  the  "  warrant  "  design. 

St.  Paul's,  as  it  is,  has  a  more  than  plausible  claim  to  be  considered 
the  most  successful  great  church  built  in  Europe  during  the  Renais- 
sance. St.  Peter's  at  Rome  excels  it  in  size  and  in  the  dignity  of 
its  internal  arrangements,  while  Michelangelo's  dome  would  rival 
Sir  Christopher's  if  only  we  could  see  it.  But  the  external  design 
of  St.  Paul's,  as  a  whole,  is  infinitely  finer  than  that  of  St.  Peter's, 


FIG.    184. — GREENWICH    HOSPITAL.       (WKEN.) 


while  the  other  churches  which  might  be  quoted  in  the  same 
connection — the  Pantheon  and  the  Church  of  the  Invalides,  in 
Paris,  St.  Isaac's  at  Petersburg — are  comparatively  unimportant  and 
lack  the  imaginative  touch  which  makes  the  mass  of  St.  Paul's  so 
imposing. 

Besides  his  fifty-five  churches.  Wren  built  eight  colleges,  thirty- 
five  halls  (City  companies,  etc.),  four  palaces,  and  over  forty  other 
important  buildings. 

After  St.  Paul's  the  most  important  of  Wren's  achievements  was 
the  rebuilding  of  the  eastern  part  of  Hampton  Court.  To  do  this 
he  had  to  destroy  a  considerable  part  of  the  Tudor  palace,  which 
is  matter  for  lamentation  ;    but  he  almost  reconciles  us  to  the  loss 

94 


INIGO  JONES  AND  WREN 

by  the  beauty  of  the  buildings  he  reared  on  the  site.  And  not 
only  are  they  beautiful,  they  are  convenient  also  to  a  degree  then 
quite  unknown  in  a  palace,  as  all  those  who  have  had  the  oppor- 
tunity for  a  thorough  exploration  will  agree.  Nowhere  else  have 
the  chosen  materials,  red  brick  with  stone  dressings,  been  endowed 
with  such  dignity.  He  also  designed  a  magnificent  approach,  with 
a  semicircular  forecourt,  for  the  northern  side,  between  the 
existing  palace  and  the  gates  of  Bushey  Park.  This  was  never 
carried  out.  His  additions  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  may 
almost  be  classed  as  a  palace.  The  design  for  the  library  is  one 
of  the  cleverest  he  made,  although  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
contrivance  by  which  he  reconciled  a  high  external  basement  story 
with  a  low  internal  one  cannot  be  accepted  without  a  qualm. 


FIG.    185. — S.E.    ANGLE,   HAMPTON   COURT    PALACE.      (WREN.) 


Certain  achievements  of  Wren  were  eccentric.  He  designed  the 
existing  towers  of  Westminster  Abbey,  a  few  "  Gothic  "  churches 
in  the  City,  and  the  curiously  happy  upper  stage  of  Tom  Tower, 
Oxford.  Interesting  as  these  productions  may  be  to  a  student  of 
Wren's  personality,  they  need  not  be  discussed  in  a  sketch  of  a 
nation's  artistic  evolution. 

It  was  not  only  as  artists  that  Jones  and  Wren  deserved  well  of 
their  country,  they  also  confirmed  the  tradition  which  has  made 
English  architects  the  best  planners  in  the  world.  In  arranging 
their  buildings,  and  providing  for  the  easy  access  of  light,  air,  and 
people  to  every  part,  they  showed  a  freedom  and  common-sense 
which  have,  on  the  whole,  governed  English  architecture  ever  since. 
In  judging  of  this  we  are  not  confined  to  their  finished  works.  Both 
men  left  behind  them  a  large  number  of  plans,  designs,  and  sketches, 
which  illustrate  the  extent  of  their  powers.    The  chief  collections  of 

95 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

these  are  in  Worcester  and  all  Souls'  Colleges,  Oxford,  at  Chats- 
worth,  and  in  the  Soane  Museum. 

It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that,  as  the  word  architect  is  now 
understood,  Jones  and  Wren  were  the  two  greatest  of  whom  we 
have  any  full  knowledge.  Their  achievements  do  not  rank  with  the 
creation  of  Greek  or  of  Gothic  architecture,  but  no  other  individual 
architect  can  be  named  whose  genius  and  activity  led  to  such  results 
as  theirs.  Jones  is  most  easily  compared  with  Palladio  ;  Wren, 
perhaps,  with  such  a  man  as  the  elder  Mansard.  But  Palladio's 
genius  was  less  masculine,  less  broad  in  its  grip  than  that  of  Jones. 
Great  as  his  success  was  when  the  problem  before  him  was  simple, 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  could  have  designed  White- 
hall. And  Mansard's  gifts  cannot  stand  for  a  moment  beside  the 
immense  variety,  the  taste,  the  sense  of  proportion,  the  judgment 
and  ingenuity,  the  copious  imagination,  and  the  unrivalled  skill  in 
adapting  a  design  to  its  destined  surroundings,  of  Wren. 


BIBUOGRAPHY  ' 

Loftie,  W.  J.  Inigo  Jones  and  Wren,  or  the  Rise  and  Decline  of  Renaissance  Architecture 
in  England,  1893.  Triggs,  H.  Inigo  and  Tanner,  Henry,  Some  Architectural  IVorks  of  Inigo 
Jones.  Folio.  Blomfield,  Reginald,  A.R.A.,  A  History  of  Renaissance  Architecture  in 
England,  8vo,  2  vols.,  189/.  Britton  and  Pugin,  Public  Buildings  of  London,  1825. 
Cunningham,  Peter,  Inigo  Jones,  1848.  Elmes,  James,  Life  and  Works  of  Sir  C.  Wren,  1823. 
ditto,  5/r  C.  Wren  and  His  Times,  1852.  Campbell,  Colin,  Vitruvius  Britannicus,  1715-1725. 
Kent,  W.,  Architecture  of  Inigo  Jones,  1727.  Leoni,  translated  by  Ware,  I.,  Architecture 
of  Palladio,  1715.  Vardy,  John,  Some  Designs  of  Inigo  Jones,  1744.  Ware,  Isaac,  A  Complete 
Body  of  Architecture,  1756;  Designs  of  Inigo  Jones,  1757.  Phillimore,  Lucy,  Sir  Christopher 
Wren,  elc,  1881.  Wren,  Christopher  (jun.),  Parentalia,  1750.  Mackmurdo.  A.  H.,  Wren's 
City  Churches,  Orpington,  1883. 


FIG.    l86.— COBHAM   H.-^LL,    KENT,    SHOWING   BLOCK   ASCRIBED   TO   INIGO    JONES. 
% 


no.    187. — SOMERSET  HOUSE.      (SIR   WILLIAM   CHAMBERS.) 


CHAPTER  IX 
FOLLOWERS  OF  JONES  AND  WREN 

Jones  created  a  new  dialect  in  Renaissance  architecture,  Wren  gave 

it  flexibility  and  completed  its  adaptation  to  English  wants.     But 

in  one  respect  Wren  was  happier  than  Jones. 

He  "both  founded  a  school  and  lived  to  see 

it  flourish.     Though  he  had  practically  retired 

many  years  before  his  death  in  1723,  he  could 

see  around  him  many  architects  well  able  to 

take  up  and  carry  on  his  tradition."  (Loftie.) 

They  were  :      Edward  Garman,   or  German, 

the  architect  of   the  second   Royal  Exchange 

(which   went  up   in   smoke  in    1838)   and  of 

several  other  City  buildings  ;    Captain  Winde, 

or  Wynne,   possibly   a   Dutchman,   who   built 

Newcastle    House    in    Lincoln's    Inn    Fields, 

and   old    Buckingham    House    in   St.    James's 

Park ;    Henry    Bell,    of    King's    Lynn,    where 

much  excellent  work  by  him  is  to  be  found  ; 

Talman,     builder    of     Chatsworth,    Thoresby 

(destroyed)    and    Swallowfield,     now    chiefly 

remembered    as    one    of    those    who    harassed 

the    later    years    of    Sir    Christopher    Wren.* 

1  "Talman,"  says  Blomfield,  "seems  to  have  been  the  true  type 
of  the  official  architect.      His  work  has  the  technical  ability  found 

in  the  work  of  nearly  every  known  English  architect  of  the  Restora-  , .    ,    .      ■   r  ■  t 

ticn.  and  onward  till  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  that  is  to  say,  his  design  is  fairly  correct, 
according  to  the  accepted  canons  of  classical  architecture,  and  his  construction  is  sound  though  by 
no  means  dexterous."     Renaissance  Architecture  in  England  vol.  ii,  p.  196. 

97  H 


FIG.    l88. — ST.   MARY-LE- 

STRAND,    LONDON. 

(GIBBS.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    189. — HORSE  GUARDS,   WHITEHALL.      (KENT.) 

Slightly  later  were  the  Earl  of  Burlington,  Hawksmoor,  Gibbs, 
Archer,  James,  Vanbrugh,  Kent,  Colin  Campbell,  Vardy,  and 
the  elder  of  the  Bath  Woods.  Of  these  men  he  who  has  most 
interested  posterity  was  undoubtedly  Vanbrugh,  who  had  the 
advertising  gift  during  his  lifetime  and  has  not  lost  it  since.  He 
talked  well  and  wrote  good  plays,  and  as  an  architect  was  full 
of  courage  and  vigor.  Unfortunately,  his  detail,  like  that  of 
Michelangelo,  is  apt  to  be  vulgar,  and  many  of  his  buildings  are 
spoilt  by  windows  even  worse  in  design  than  those  of  the  top  story  of 
the  Palazzo  Farnese.  His  chief  works  are  Blenheim  Palace  (Figs. 
201,  202),  Castle  Howard,  Seaton  Delaval  (Fig.  200),  Grimsthorpe, 
and  the  ugly  part  of  Greenwich  Hospital.  Of  these,  Castle  Howard 
is  the  most  agreeable,  but  it  can  hardly  be  called  a  good  design. 
The  best  feature  is  the  basement  on  the  garden  front,  which  is 
happy  both  in  proportions  and  detail.  Blenheim  is  strong  enough, 
but  very  ugly.  Its  architect  shows  himself  deficient  in  that  in- 
definable quality,  so  indispensable  in  domestic  architecture,  which 
we    know    as    taste.     His    accents    are    badly    distributed.     He    is 


i 


i 


FIG.    190. — HOLKHAM   HOUSE,    NORFOLK.      (KENT.) 

98 


FOLLOWERS  OF  JONES  AND  WREN 


riG.   191.— KEDLESTON   HALL,      DERBYSHIRE.       (PAINE   AND    R.    ADAM.) 

robust  where  he  should  be  playful,  decorative  where  he  should  be 
severe,  simple  where  a   little  elaboration  was  clearly  invited.     The 
other  men  named  above  were  more  timid  than  Vanbrugh,  but  most 
of  them  had  much  better  taste.     Lord  Burlington  produced  several 
excellent  designs,  the  best  being  his  own  house  in  Piccadilly,  which 
is  now  divided  between  the  Royal  Academy  and   the  children  in 
Battersea  Park.     Hardly  less  excellent  is  the  design  he  made  for  the 
great  dormitory  of  Westminster  School.     By  Kent,  his  intimate  friend 
and  perpetual  guest,  the  best  things  are  Holkham  House  (Fig.  190),  the 
Horse  Guards  (Fig.  189),  and  the  unfinished  Treasury  building  on 
the  south  side  of  the  Horse  Guards  parade.     The  western  front  of 
the  Horse  Guards  is  an  excellent  design.     The  front  toward  Whitehall 
is  less  successful,   because  the  architect  has  failed   to    provide  any 
eesthetical  bond  of  union  be- 
tween its  parts.     There  is  a 
happy    mean    between    the 
total    concealment    and    the 
brazen  display  of  structure, 
which   Kent   has   missed   in 
Whitehall,  although  he  had 
hit    it    off    exacdy    in    St. 
James's  Park.     Hawksmoor, 
the    direct    pupil    of    Wren, 
produced    two    original    de- 
signs in  St.  George's,  Blooms- 
bury,   and  St.   Mary  Wool- 
noth,  at  the  end  of  Lombard 
Street,  and  a  not  ineffective 
piece  of  eccentricity  in  the  towers  of  All  Souls  at  Oxford.     The 
best,  and  best  known,  works  of  Gibbs  are  two   London  churches,  St. 
Mary-Ie-Strand  (Fig.    188)  and  St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields,  and  the 

99  H2 


FIG.  192. — MANSION  HOUSE,  LONDON. 
(GEORGE  DANCE,  THE  ELDER.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  193.— CUSTOMS  HOUSE,  DUBLIN.  (gANDON.) 


surroundings  the  design  stand 
apart  from  the  routine  conceptions  which  too 
often  mark  the  style.  The  Radcliffe  Library 
shows  the  same  taste  and  intelligence.  The 
imagination  refuses  to  conceive  any  other  sort 
of  building  in  this  position  and  entourage. 
Gibbs's  design  for  the  Senate  House  at  Cam- 
bridge was  never  completely  carried  out. 
The  existing  block  is  only  one-third  of  what 
was  originally  intended.  The  principal  works 
of  Colin  Campbell  are  Mereworth,  Kent ; 
Houghton,  Norfolk  ;  and  Wanstead,  in 
Essex,  now  destroyed.  By  Archer  we  have 
Cliveden  House  and  St.  John's  Church, 
Westminster — "  the  kitchen  table  on  its 
back  ";  by  James,  St.  George's,  Hanover 
Square  ;  and  by  Vardy  the  excellent  park 
front  of  Spencer  House,  St.  James's  (Fig.  1 99). 
By  the  two  Dances,  father  and  son,   are  the 


Radcliffe  Library  at  Oxford  (Fig. 
196).  Of  all  Wren's  successors, 
Gibbs  shows  the  largest  share  of 
that  gift  for  adapting  art  to  condi- 
tions in  which  Sir  Christopher 
was  unrivalled.  The  Church  of 
St.  Mary-le-Strand,  with  her 
skirts  gathered  about  her  like  a 
lady  in  a  crowd,  has  now  lost 
some  of  the  significance  derived 
from  the  former  conditions  of  the 
site,  but  even  in  its  changed 
far    enough 


FIG.    194. — ST.   CLEMENT 

DANES,    LONDON. 

(wren   and   GIBBS.) 


FIG.    195. — BANK   OF   IRELAND.      (CASTELL.) 


100 


Mansion  House  (Fig.  192)  and 
the  late  Newgate  Prison  respec- 
tively. The  latter  was  a  really 
fine  design,  and  its  disappear- 
ance is  a  disaster  for  London,  in 
spite  of  its  ungentle  associations. 
Wren  and  his  immediate 
successors  had,  for  the  time, 
so  completely  supplied  English 
wants  in  grandiose  architecture, 
that  the  generation  which  began 


FOLLOWERS  OF  JONES  AND  WREN 


to  come  into  the  world  with  the  arrival 
of  the  Hanoverian  Kings  found  com- 
paratively little  to  do.  Between  the 
death  of  Queen  Anne  and  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century  a  large  number 
of  fine  country  houses  and  metropoli- 
tan churches  were  erected,  indeed,  but 
the  rebuilding  of  Somerset  House  was 
the  only  national  work  of  any  great 
importance.  To  this  statement,  how- 
ever, the  creation  of  Bath  by  the  two 
Woods,  father  and  son,  provides  a 
collective  exception.  Without  contain- 
ing any  design  of  conspicuous  merit,  the 

city  is  full  of 


FIG.    196. — OXFORD,    RADCLIFFE 
LIBRARY.       (GIBBS.) 


FIG.  197. — TOWN  HALL,  ABINGDON. 

century  came  with  the  re- 
building of  Somerset  House 
at  the  beginning  of  its  last 
quarter.  The  work  of 
Chambers  has  been  much 
criticised,  chiefly  because  it 
fails  to  make  the  most  of 
the  conditions.  The  block 
which  lies  between  the  great 
court  and  the  Strand  de- 
serves nothing  but  praise ; 
but   the   long   front   on   the 


happy    ar- 
rangement 

and  pleasant  architecture.  The  best 
single  design,  perhaps,  is  that  of  the 
Guildhall,  by  Baldwin,  the  Woods's 
successor.  This  building  was  added 
to,  by  the  late  James  Brydon,  with 
excellent  taste.  The  erection  of  Blen- 
heim Palace,  too,  by  Sir  John  Van- 
brugh,  may  perhaps  be  called  a 
national  undertaking,  although  the  be- 
lief that  it  was  a  free  gift  from  the 
nation  to  the  great  Duke  is  not  so  well 
founded  as  we  might  wish  it  to  be. 
The  great  national  opportunity  of  the 


FIG.    198. — CASINO,  NEAR    DUBLIN. 
(sir   WILLIAM   CHAMBERS.) 


101 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


river  (Fig.  1 87),  good  as  it  is,  might  have  been  so  much  more  effective, 
that   our    gratituae    to    the    architect   is   far   from    unalloyed.     The 

terrace  before  it  is  too  wide. 


and  reduces  its  height,  the 
sky  line  is  bad,  and  the  flat 
dome,  though  good  in  propor- 
tion, proclaims  the  meanness 
of  its  materials.  An  exquisite 
and  little  known  design  by 
Chambers  is  the  Casino,  near 
Dublin  (Fig.  1 93),  built  for  the 
first  Earl  of  Charlemont. 
Dublin  itself  is  full  of  good 
work  which  owed  much  to 
his  inspiration.  The  Customs 
House,  by  his  pupil  Gandon, 
is  a  charming  composition. 
The  "  Four  Courts,"  which 
owes  its  existing  form  to  Gandon,  is  severely  dignified,  and  the 
parts  he  added  to  the  Parliament  House,  now  the  Bank  of  Ireland, 
are  worthy  of  the  rest.  The  main  quadrangle  of  Trinity  College 
was  carried  out  by  Mayer  from  sketches  by  Chambers. 

Much  good  work  in  Dublin,  and  in  Ireland  generally,  is  to  be 
traced  to  the  pupils  of  the  brothers  Adam,  who  embodied  the  last 
living  force  in  the  English  Renaissance  before  the  archeeological 
period  set  in.  In  London,  the  Adams,  of  whom  Robert  was 
the  ruling  spirit,  built  the  Adelphi,   two  sides  of  Fitzroy  Square, 

1     most  of   Portland 


FIG.  IQQ. 


-SPENCER  HOUSE,   ST.   JAMES  S,   LONDON. 
(VARDY.) 


Place,  and  many 
isolated  houses  of 
merit,  such  as 
Mrs.  Montagu's 
in  P  o  r  t  m  a  n 
Square.  A  curi- 
ous want  of  in- 
ternal  peace 
marks  the  art  of 
these  d5A0oi.  As 
ornemanistes  they 
were  refined  to  a 
fault,  seeing  in  decoration  a  surface  beauty  comparable  to  the 
gold  lace  of  a  sergeant-major.     As  architects,  on  the  other  hand,  they 

102 


FIG.    200. — SEATON  DELAVAL.      (VANBRUGH.) 


FOLLOWERS  OF  JONES  AND  WREN 


FIG.    20I. — ELEVATION  OF  BLENHEIM.      (VANBRUGH.) 

are  frequently  over-bold,  exercising  a  mistaken  ingenuity  in  forcing  a 
monumental  gloss  upon  a  frivolous  structure,  and  driving  half  a 
dozen  little  features  under  some  great  mask  with  which  they  are 
not  in  sympathy.  From  this  it  results  that  their  most  satisfactory 
productions  are  monumental  designs  on  which  little  or  no  orna- 
ment occurs.  Much  good  work  in  Edinburgh  is  theirs,  the  best 
things,  perhaps,  being  Charlotte  Square,  the  Register  House,  and 


KITCHEN  COURT 


^:3« 


SALOON                 20  ,^      "          liSHE  »t*< 

DINING  ROOM       22  27  53  1         J             •  STARlFrnuRT           *  Afi 

DRESSING  ROOM  24  26  55  |         ^             _. STABLE  COURT           j,   ♦«  j 

COURT                   26  29  ^2          tl3K  Kit) 

GREAT  HALL           28                          [      "             %»Mlkm  I**J 

CORRIDOR            30  31  32  34                 "^              113  f-~1 

PORTICO                 33                                                 I  SI  1 11  I  T*T% 

5REAT  GAUERY     35                                                 I  ''  I "  i  ,   ,  T*H 
THE«,EATGATE    39^                                         J  J_  LH*t"*'"'^'^fH 

CARRIAGE  HOtlSES  45  47^^,^^         !  dT         "  ^      *^     \  *«  J 


44  50  5152 
56 
)  Of  GREAT  GAUERY  58 

THE     GREAT      COURT 


no.  202'. — BLENHEIM,  PLAN.     (vANBRUGH.)   Scale  :  about  230  feet  to  an  inch. 

the  "  College  "  (Fig.  203),  to  which  an  excellent  finish  has  been  given 
within  recent  years  by  the  addition  of  Sir  Rowand  Anderson's 
dome.  In  the  south,  the  best  examples,  perhaps,  are  Kenwood, 
Luton    House,    and    the    old    Mansion — now,    however,  removed, 

103 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


I  believe — at  Bryanston  Park,  Dorset.  In  most  of  these  we  have 
to  lament  a  want  of  congruity  between  the  scale  and  simplicity 
of  the  architecture  as  a  whole,  and  the  complicated  smallness  of  its 

decorative  system.  Kedle- 
ston  Hall,  Derbyshire,  has 
to  be  divided  between  three 
architects,  of  whom  J.  Paine, 
whose  portrait  by  Sir  Joshua 
hangs  at  Oxford,  probably 
deserves  most  credit.  But 
Robert  Adam  carried  the 
house  to  completion.  Robert 
Adam  and  his  brothers  were 
more  than  architects.  They 
were  the  authors  of  a  move- 
ment in  design  which  effected 
every  object  of  domestic  use 
that  was  not  purely  and 
exclusively  utilitarian.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  their 
ideas  controlled  the  domestic  arts  of  these  islands  from  about  I  775 
to  the  beginning  of  the  long  peace,  in  1815. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
All  the  Works  quoted  in  Bibliography  to  Chapter  VIII,  and  the  following: — 
Adam,  Robert  and  James:  JVorks,  1778.  Adam,  Robert:  Ruins  of  the  Palace  of  the 
Emperor  Diocletian  at  Spalateo,  1764.  Adams,  M.  B. :  Old  English  Houses,  ]8&6.  Aldrich, 
Henry:  Elementa  Architecturoe  Cioilis,  1789.  Belcher,  J.,  and  Macartney,  M.  :  Later  Renais- 
sance Architecture  in  England,  1897.  Birch,  G.  H. :  London  Churches  of  the  Seventeenth  and 
Eighteenth  Centuries,  1896.  Bulmer,  G.  :  Architectural  Studies  in  Yorkshire,  1887.  Chambers, 
Sir  William,  R.  A. :  Treatise  on  the  Decorative  Part  of  Civil  Architecture,  1791.  Evelyn,  John: 
The  Whole  Body  of  Ancient  and  Modern  Architecture,  1680.  [Trans,  from  Freart,  Roland]. 
Gibbs,  James:  Bibliotheca  Radcliviana,  1747;  ditto:  A  Book  of  Architecture,  1728.  Gotch, 
J.  A.:  Buildings  erected  by  Sir  Thomas  Tresham,  1883.  Gwilt,  Joseph:  Encyclopaedia  of 
/4rc/»7ec/ure  (W.  Papwood's  Edition,  1876).    Mulvaney,  Thomas :  Life  of  Gandon,  1846. 


FIG.    203. — THE   "college,"   EDINBURGH. 
(r.  ADAM  AND  SIR  ROWAND  ANDERSON.) 


FIG.    204. — KIRKBY  HALL,   NORTHANTS. 


104 


FIG.    205. — THE   HOUSES   OF   PARLIAMENT.      (SIR   CHARLES   BARRY.) 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  CLASSIC  AND  GOTHIC  REVIVALS 


The  wave  of  devotion  to  all  things  classic  which  passed  over  the 
continent  of  Europe  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  destroyed 
Enghsh  architecture  with  its  backwash.  The  inheritors  of  the 
traditions  of  Jones  and  Wren  died  out,  and  were  succeeded  by 
scholars  and  archseologists.  The  classic  movement  had,  perhaps, 
begun  in  this  country,  with  the  researches  of  James  Stuart  and 
Nicholas  Revett  and  the  publication  of  their  A  ntiquities  of  A  thens 
in  1 762.  Stuart  built  a  house  in  St.  James's  Square,  which  was 
probably  the  first  concrete  result  of  the  movement.  But  without 
the   fillip    given   by    the   French  


Revolution  and  the  vogue  it 
brought  to  everything  which  could 
be  called  classical,  the  eclipse  of 
old  models  and  traditional  ideas 
would  never  have  become  so  com- 
plete and  disastrous  as  it  did. 

It  was  disastrous  in  many  ways. 
It  brought  into  fashion  a  style  of 
building  unsuited  to  the  habits  of 
the  English  people  and  the  climate 
of  their  country.  It  created  a  pro- 
pensity toward  revivals.  It  de- 
based taste  and  substituted  the  archaeologist  for  the  artist — and, 
finally,  it  spoilt  building,  for  when  men  copy  they  are  apt  to  do  so 

105 


FIG.    206. — ST.    GEORGE'S   HALL,    LIVER- 
POOL,    (elmes.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


in  inferior  materials.*  The  last 
evil,  however,  may  have  been  a 
blessing  in  disguise,  for  the  brick 
and  stucco  in  which  so  much 
pseudo-classical  building  of  the 
early  nineteenth  century  was 
carried  out  is  making  our  task 
easier  in  clearing  it  away  and 
replacing  it  with  something  better. 
During  the  whole  of  the  long 
period  which  elapsed  between  the 
building  of  Somerset  House  and 
that  return  to  the  Jones-Wren 
tradition  which  marked  the  end 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  English 
architecture  was  in  a  non-natural 
and  insincere  condition.  Build- 
ings were  designed  by  men  who 
had  to  keep  one  eye  on  artificial  conditions  and  the  other  on  the 
nature  of  the  case.  In  the  first  half  of  the  century  they  were 
contriving  the  best  churches,  houses,  railway  stations,  compatible 
with  obedience  to  Doric  or  Ionic  rules  ;  in  the  second  half,  their 
incubus  was  the  precedent  set  by  the  cathedral-builders  of  the 
thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries,  modified  and  com- 
plicated by   examples   taken   from   various   architectural   centres  on 


-great  hall,  penrhyn  castle, 
(hopper.) 


FIG.  208. — ST.  George's,  doncaster. 

(sir   G.    G.    SCOTT.) 


FIG.  209. — MANCHESTER  TOWN  HALL. 
(WATERHOUSE.) 


*  It  was  gravely  proposed,  in  the  flood  of  the  classical  revival,  to  transform  the  Gothic  of  Oxford 
into  Greek,  by  means  of  stucco  columns,  pediments,  and  pilasters ! 

106 


THE  CLASSIC  AND  GOTHIC  REVIVALS 


FIG.    2IO. — THE   LAW   COURTS,    CENTRAL 
HALL.      (street.) 


the  continent  of  Europe.  As  time 
went  on,  they  did  much  better  under 
the  latter  tyranny  than  under  the 
former.  The  better  results  of  the 
Gothic  revival  are  probably  the  best 
things  to  which  an  antiquarian  spirit 
has  ever  led  in  art,  and  far  excel  the 
most  successful  achievements  of  the 
pseudo-classicist.  So  good  are  they, 
indeed,  that  they  are  often  criticised 
as  too  good,  and  likely  to  seduce  the 
learned  New  Zealander  of  a  distant 
future  into  accepting  them  as  genuine 
relics  from  the  Gothic  centuries. 

To  treat  all  these  galvanizings  of 
the  dead  as  part  of  the  live  stem 
of  British  art  would  be  absurd. 
They  are  divagations  from  it  and 
impediments  to  its  growth.  The  whole  period  in  which  they 
occurred  has  been  branded  by  a  distinguished  professor  as  "  Chaos." 
All  that  need  be  said  is  to  note  their  occurrence,  mentioning 
some  of  the  real  artists  who  contrived  to  show  their  mettle  in 
spite  of  the  conditions,  and  a  few  of  the  best  works  they  produced. 

Among  the  chief  buildings  of  the 
classical  revival  are  St.  Pancras 
Church,  which  would  be  a  good 
imitation  of  a  Greek  temple  ex- 
ternally were  it  not  for  the  steeple  ; 
the  Bank  of  England  ;  the  British 
Museum  ;  the  entrance  to  Euston 
Station;  the  Athenaeum  Club;  the 
arches  at  Hyde  Park  Corner  ;  the 
Fitzwilliam  Museum,  at  Cambridge  ; 
various  public  buildings  in  Edinburgh 
and  Glasgow  ;  and  St.  George's  Hall, 
at  Liverpool.  The  last  named,  the 
work  of  a  young  architect  named 
Elmes,  is  perhaps  the  most  success- 
ful adaptation  of  classical  models  to 
modern  uses  yet  made  in  Europe. 
If  its  lot  had  been  cast  in  a  sunny 
climate  and  a  smokeless  city  it  would 

107 


f 
1         A     A     >     '     '^ 

i       }      |\       ."ir.       ' 

■l      \ 

J     i"^      i  :      3 

<il 

FIG.    211. — EXETER  COLLEGE   CHAPEL. 
(sir   G.   G.    SCOTT.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


have  been  world-famous  by  now. 
But  Greek  architecture  requires  an 
ever-blazing  sun  to  justify  its  spirit. 
The  classical  revival  was  followed  by 
one  based  on  the  Italian  Renaissance, 
which  differed  from  the  movement 
inaugurated  by  Inigo  Jones  in  that 
it  was  a  literal  translation  instead  of 
a  rendering  into  idiomatic  English. 
It  aimed  at  setting  down  in  the 
streets  of  London  a  series  of  build- 
ings which  would  have  been  at  home 
in  those  of  Rome  or  Florence,  or 
even  on  the  banks  of  the  Venetian 
canals.  It  is  exemplified  chiefly  in  the  works  of  Sir  Charles 
Barry  (Bridgewater  House, 
Reform  Club,  Travellers' 
Club,  Halifax  Town  Hall, 
10  Kensington  Palace  Gar- 
dens) ;  C.  R.  Cockerell  (Uni- 
versity Galleries,  Oxford  ; 
Sun  Fire  Office,  Thread- 
needle  Street)  ;  Sir  James 
Pennethorne;  the  two 
Smirkes,  and  others. 


FIG.    212. — THE   LAW   COURTS,    STRAND 
ENTRANCE.      (STREET.) 


The  original  begetter  of 
the  Gothic  revival  in  England 
was,  no  doubt,  Horace  Wal- 


FIG.    213. 


-keble  college  chapel,  oxford, 
(butterfield.) 


FIG.    214. — CHURCH    OF    ST.    JOHN    THE 

EVANGELIST,    RED   LION   SQUARE. 

(PEARSON.) 


pole,  whose  toy  of  Strawberry  Hill 
was  slowly  elaborated  between  1  760 
and  1  770.  He  had,  of  course,  been 
preceded  by  Wren,  whose  quasi- 
Gothic,  however,  was  inspired  by 
anything  rather  than  by  a  desire 
to  breathe  life  into  a  vanished 
form  of  art.  Strawberry  Hill  set  a 
fashion  which  slowly  made  its  way 
toward  the  status  of  a  serious 
movement.  The  country  was  sprinkled 
over  with  churches  and  mansions 
on  which  some  supposed -to-be - 
108 


THE  CLASSIC  AND  GOTHIC  REVIVALS 


FIG.    215. — DESIGN  FOR  BELFRY,  CHRIST 
CHURCH,    OXFORD.       (BODLEY.) 


Gothic  badge  —  pointed  windows, 
spiky  pinnacles,  crenellations  —  had 
been  hung.  But  meanwhile  the 
young  men  had  been  learning,  and 
by  the  time  the  movement  was  just 
one  century  old,  they  had  mastered 
their  business  and  were  at  last  ready 
to  break  a  lance  with  the  real  old 
Gothic  architects. 

During  the  period  of  apprentice- 
ship a  certain  number  of  works  had 
been  carried  out  which  should  not  be 
ignored.  The  Church  of  St.  Luke, 
Chelsea,  had  been  built,  and  was 
considered,  at  the  time,  a  wonderful 
exercise  in  Perpendicular  ;  Windsor 
Castle  had  been  remodelled,  almost 
rebuilt,  by  Sir  Jeffrey  Wyatville, 
who  on  the  whole  acquitted  him- 
self of  his  very  difficult  task  with 
more  success  than  might  have  been  expected.  The  old  Palace 
of  Westminster  had  been  burnt  down  and  a  gorgeous  successor 
erected  on  its  site.  Thanks  to  the  organ- 
izing power  of  Barry,  the  archeeological 
knowledge  of  Pugin,  and  the  taste  of  both, 
this  last  enterprise  ended  in  the  greatest 
success  ever  scored  under  similar  condi- 
tions. Looked  at  with  the  eye  of  the 
archaeological  purist  the  Houses  of  Par- 
liament were  designed  at  least  a  quarter 
of  a  century  too  soon.  They  are  without 
Gothic  frankness,  and  variety.  But 
they  are  extraordinarily  well  arranged  ; 
they  are  grandiose ;  and  their  details — 
even  to  such  magnificent  details  as  the  two 
great  towers — are  full  of  beauty.  Per- 
haps the  one  great  fault  committed  by 
Barry,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  was 
the  failure  to  bring  the  central  block  of  the 
river-front  out  to  the  edge  of  the  terrace, 
and  to  connect  it  with  the  water  by  a 
noble   flight  of   steps.    A   palace   standing 

109 


FIG.    216. SCOTT    MONUMENT, 

EDINBURGH.      (kEMP.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


fig.  217. — westminster  cathedral,  porch, 
(bentley.) 


on  a  river's  edge  and  yet  cut 
off  from  it  by  a  wall  is  like  a 
bather  who  fears  to  wet  her 
feet ! 

By  the  time  the  Houses 
of  Parliament  were  finished, 
the  Gothic  revival  had  pro- 
ceeded so  far  that  the  style 
in  which  they  were  de- 
signed had  already  become 
anathema  with  the  younger 
Gothic  architects.  These 
had  re-surveyed  the  whole 
field  of  pointed  architecture, 
and  had  determined  that 
the  true  principles  were  only  to  be  found  in  the  buildings  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  For  a  time  this  belief  governed  the 
situation,  although  a  certain  number  of  practitioners  wandered  after 
strange  gods,  in  the  Gothic  of  Germany,  Venice,  and  Spain. 
Putting  aside  Pugin,  the  forerunner,  the  men  who  first  attracted 
attention  about  the  time  when  the  last  stone  was  being  set  on 
the  Victoria  Tower  (1860-61)  were  those  to  whom  the  successful 
imitation  of  Gothic  architecture  in  this  country  will  in  future  be 
credited.  They  were  Raphael  Brandon,  the  architect  of  the 
Irvingite  church  in  Gordon  Square  ;  G.  E.  Street,  that  demon  of 
energy  to  whom  we  owe  the  Law  Courts  (Fig.  210-1 2),  the  additions 
to  Bristol  Cathedral,  and  a  Gothic  design  for  a  National  Gallery  ; 

Butterfield,  the  creator  of 

All  Saints',  Margaret 
Street,  and  of  Keble  Col- 
lege, Oxford  (Fig.  213); 
Pearson,  the  architect  of 
Truro  Cathedral,  of  the 
Church  of  St.  John  the 
Evangelist  in  Red  Lion 
Square  (Fig.  2  r4),  and  of 
the  north  porch  of  West- 
minster Abbey  ;  Burges, 
whose  most  important 
works  are  the  Cathedral 
of  St.  Finn  Bar,  at  Cork, 

FIG.  2l8. — trinity  CHURCH,  SLOANE  STREET.    (SEDDING.)  ^HCl      V^ardlll      V^aStlC;      OIF 

110 


V 


UNlVERsn  T 


LASSIC  AND  GOTHIC  REVIVALS 


Gilbert  Scott,  the  most  active 
of  them  all,  who  is  at  his  best 
in  the  interior  of  Exeter  Col- 
lege Chapel  (Fig.  211),  in 
Doncaster  Parish  Church 
(Fig.  208),  in  St.  Michael's, 
Hamburg,  and  in  St.  Mary's 
Cathedral,  Edinburgh; 
Brooks,  who  is  well  repre- 
sented by  the  Church  of  St. 
Columba,  N.  London  ;  Bod- 
ley,  the  architect  of  Eccleston 
Church  and  the  most  sym- 
pathetic and  justly  inspired  of 
them  all,  whose  fine  project 
for  the  bell  tower  of  Christ 
Church,  Oxford,  is  not  yet 
completely  carried  out  (Fig. 
215);  Goldie,  the  architect  of 
St.  Vincent's,  Cork  ;  Sir 
Arthur  Blomlield,  who  built 
the  existing  nave  of  St. 
Saviour's,  Southwark,  and 
many  churches  ;  and  a  great 
number  of  others. 

Beside  these  men,  certain 
architects  were  at  work  who 
used  Gothic  forms  in  a  freer 
and  more  arbitrary  fashion, 
generally  with  a  plentiful 
want  of  success.  The  most 
conspicuous  of  these  was 
Alfred  Waterhouse,  who 
reached  through  energy  and 
business  capacity  a  vogue  to 
which  his  purely  artistic 
gifts  scarcely  entitled  him. 
Oxford,  Edinburgh,  Man- 
chester (Fig.  209),  and 
London  have  suffered  greatly 
from  his  activity. 

The    last    phase    of    the 


FIG.    219.- 


-westminster  cathedral,  nave, 
(bentley.) 


Ill 


-WESTMINSTER  CATHEDRAL,  BRAMPTON 
CHAPEL. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


1 

1 1 HHJHJJHH 

III 

FIG.    221. RYLAND  S    LIBRARY, 

MANCHESTER. 

(basil  CHAMPNEYS.) 


Gothic  Revival  is  an  echo  from 
the  Tudor  chaos.  In  it  Gothic  detail 
is  used  in  a  masterful,  arbitrary 
fashion,  and  too  often  with  a 
complete  disregard  for  beauty  and 
for  that  logical  articulation  w^hich 
makes  one  form  the  natural  outcome 
of  another.  Anything  uglier,  for 
instance,  than  the  window  tracery, 
or  more  unreasonable  than  the 
filling  in  of  the  spandrils  to  the 
nave  arches,  in  the  much  admired 
Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  Chelsea 
(Fig.  218),  by  Sedding,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  name.  Freedoms  as  great 
have  been  taken  by  Mr.  Mackenzie 
in  his  Marischall  College,  Aberdeen 
(Fig.  222),  but  there  a  sense  of 
beauty  governs  the  whole — as  it  does 
the  interior  of  the  Rylands  Library,  at  Manchester  (Fig.  221),  by 
Mr.  Basil  Champneys,  and  the  design  for  the  exterior  of  the  Scottish 
National  Portrait  Gallery,  by  Sir  Rowand  Anderson. 

The  fashion-curve  in  the  Gothic  revival  is  curious.  It  began 
with  Perpendicular,  sank — or  rose — steadily  to  the  earliest  forms  of 
Pointed,  and  then  as  steadily  reversed  the  process,  until  now  it  is 
back  at  the  mixture  of  Perpendicular  with  Renaissance  in  which  the 
first  death  of  Gothic  occurred.  On  the  whole,  perhaps,  the  modern 
architect  who  has  been  most  successful  in  the  free,  one  might  almost 
say  the  irresponsible,  use  of  those  mixed  forms  which  first  prevailed  in 
England  in  Elizabethan  and  Jacobaean  times,  is  Mr.  T.  G.  Jackson, 
whose  genius  is  gifted  with  a  quite  remarkable  flexibility.  His  work 
at  Oxford — and  elsewhere — is  a  singularly  happy  continuation  of 
local  traditions. 

The  Classical  revival,  like  the  Gothic,  survives  to-day  in  a  certain 
number  of  buildings  in  which  its  forms  are  used  with  as  much 
freedom  as  is  compatible  with  their  genesis,  and  with  a  flexibility 
which  is  quite  new.  One  of  the  best  examples  is  the  new  building 
for  the  Glasgow  Assurance  Company  (Fig.  223),  in  Euston  Square, 
by  Professor  Beresford  Pite,  in  which  a  Greek  severity  is  relieved 
by  touches  of  free  design  skilfully  grafted  on  the  main  conception. 

Here,  perhaps,  is  the  place  to  note  the  fact  that  all  these 
revivals  were  carried  on  to  an  accompaniment  of  protest  from  those 

112 


I 


THE  CLASSIC  AND  GOTHIC  REVIVALS 

who  insisted  that  architecture,  like  other  arts,  but  perhaps  in  even 
greater  degree,  should  express  the  living  ideas  of  its  ow^n  time. 
Such  a  contention  is  so  indefeasible  as  to  be  a  truism,  for  no 
architecture,  seriously  intended,  can  fail  to  be  the  expression  of 
its  age.  When  classical  scholarship  and  archaeology  are  the  leading 
intellectual  preoccupations  of  a  generation,  they  are  bound  to  find 
expression  in  its  art,  and  to  become,  in  their  way,  valuable  documents 
for  the  future.  It  is  the  same  with  restoration.  In  a  restoring  age 
we  must  restore  :  only,  let  us  be  very  curious  as  to  the  rights  of  each 
case  before  proceeding  to  action.  If  an  example  of  architecture 
be  famous  for  qualities  which  cannot  be  restored — for  its  associations 
or  the  glory  placed  upon  it  by  time — let  us  leave  it  alone.  But  if 
it  be  famous  for  the  beauty  of  its  design — like  the  Angel  Tower  of 
Canterbury — or  for  the  part  it  plays  in  a  group — like  the  Venetian 
Campanile — the  best  restoration  to  be  compassed  is  clearly  demanded. 
Our  failure  or  success  in  the  task  will  be  judged  by  posterity,  and 
will  form  part  of  the  permanent  badge  of  our  age.  The  moral 
of  all  this  is  that  it  is  of  little  use  to  try  to  enforce  upon 
any  art  principles  which  are  not  in  sympathy  with  the  intel- 
lectual character  of  the  time.  The  nineteenth  centurv  as  a  whole, 
was  a   fine,   critical   and 


inquiring  century,  much 
more  addicted  to  finding 
out  causes  than  to  pro- 
ducing new  results,  and 
much  of  its  art,  especially 
in  those  branches  which 
are  most  easily  touched  by 
scholarship,  was  scientific 
rather  than  aesthetic  in  its 
inspiration.  In  an  attempt 
to  follow  the  internal  de- 
velopment, natural  uncon- 
scious growth  of  British 
archtecture,  it  is  of  assist- 
ance only  through  the  light 
it  casts  on  English  charac- 
ter and  habits  of  thought.  One  of  the  most  salient  features  it  betrays 
is,  unhappily,  a  fault  :  that  of  instability.  The  French  instinct,  or 
perhaps  reasoned-out  determination,  is  to  cling  to  all  the  fertile 
strains  in  their  own  tradition.  That  instinct  has  been  and  still  is 
one  of  the  chief  causes  of  their  general  supremacy  in  art  life  as  a 

113 


FIG.    222. — MARISCHALL   COLLEGE,    ABERDEEN. 
(MARSHALL-MACKENZIE.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

whole.  A  French  architect  with  a  problem  to  solve  is  content  with 
what  has  become  the  national  vernacular.  He  introduces  only  such 
modifications  as  are  required  by  the  special  conditions.  Hence  there 
is  a  natural  continuity  and  affiliation  in  his  forms  which  is  not,  and 
never  has  been,  so  marked  in  English  building.  That  we  have  the 
qualities  of  our  defects  is  only  a  partial  consolation,  and  the  posses- 
sion of  a  certain  number  of  structures  in  which  an  eclectic  method 
has  been  used  with  extraordinary  skill,  scarcely  makes  up  for  the 
absence  of  such  a  body  of  homogeneous  art  as  French  Renaissance 
architecture. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Barry,  Rev.  A.:  Life  and  Worko  of  Sir  Charles  Barry,  London,  1867.  Hittorf :  Notice 
Historique  ei  Biographique  sur  la  vie  et  les  ceuvres  de  Sir  Charles  Barry,  Paris,  1 860.  Pugin, 
E.  W.:  Who  was  the  Art  Architect  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  London,  1867.  Barry,  Rev. 
A. :  The  Architect  of  the  New  Palace  of  Westminster,  London,  1868.  Pugin,  A.  W.  N.  :  An 
Apology  for  the  Revival  of  Gothic  Architecture  in  England,  London,  1843.  Ditto:  State  of 
Ecclesiastical  Architecture  in  England,  hondon,  1843.  Ditto:  The  True  Principles  of  Pointed, 
or  Christian,  A  rchitecture,  London,  1 84 1 .  Ferrey :  Recollections  of  A .  W.  Pugin.  Water- 
house,  Paul:  Life  and  Works  of  Augustus  Welby  Northmore  Pugin,  in  the  Architectural  Re- 
view for  1897.  The  Ecclesiologist  for  1852.  Scott,  Sir  G.  G. :  Pergonal  and  Professional 
Recollections,  i^ondon,  1879.  Street,  A.  E. :  Memoir  of  G.  E.  Street,  London,  1888.  East- 
lake,  C. :  The  History  of  the  Gothic  Revival,  l^ondon,  1872.  Cooper  and  Wilson  :  The  Works 
of  John  Sedding,  in  the  Architectural  Review  for  1897.  Newberry,  J.  E. :  The  Works  of  J.  L. 
Pearson,  R.A.,  in  the  Architectural  Review  for  1896.  Sedille,  C. :  Architecture  Contemporaine 
en  Angleterre,  n.d.     The  Architectural  Review,  passim,  vols.  I  to  XVIII. 


FIG.    223. — GLASGOW   ASSURANCE   BUILDING,    EUSTON   SQUARE. 
^  ,      (BERESFORD  PITE.) 


114 


i- 

i 

_. 

J 

1 

ifiri 

IBM. 

4 

ij 

@ 

Inlllll 

mM  '  M. 

mth\'%'\ 

rfilB 

|'pii^'?5V?f.-:  - 

'  'mm 

liU 

FIG.    224. — TOWN  HALL,   BELFAST.      (siR  E.   BRUMWELL-THOMAS.) 


CHAPTER  XI 
MODERN  RENAISSANCE 


Roughly  speaking,  the  full  Gothic  revival  prevailed  for  about  a 
generation.  It  w^as  then  challenged  by  what  was  called  "  Queen 
Anne,"  a  style  compounded  of  various  features  taken  from  Jones 
and  Wren,  their  followers,  and  the 
architects  of  Belgium  and  Holland. 
The  first  building  in  the  new  manner 
to  attract  much  attention  was  New  Zea- 
land Chambers,  in  Leadenhall  Street 
(Fig.  225).  It  was  the  work  of  Richard 
Norman  Shaw,  an  architect  of  genius, 
who  has,  ever  since,  been  accepted  as 
the  chief  leader  in  the  movement. 
His  next  important  work  in  London 
was  the  insurance  office  at  the  junction 
of  St.  James's  Street  and  Pall  Mall,  in 
which  the  Flemish  influence  is  very 
strong.  At  a  long  interval  this  was 
followed  by  the  clumsily  named  New 
Scotland  Yard,  a  robuster  exercise  in 
a  more  English  dialect ;  and  that  again, 
after  several  years,  by  those  designs  for 
remodelling  whole  districts  of  London, 
of  which  the  chief  results,  at  present,  are  the  Gaiety  Theatre  (Fig. 
230)  and  the  Piccadilly  Hotel  (Fig.  226).     Meanwhile  Mr.  Shaw 

115  l2 


FIG.    225. — NEW    ZEALAND   CHAMBERS, 
LEADENHALL    STREET. 


(norm AN   SHAW.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   226. — THE   PICCADILLY   HOTEL. 
(nORMAN   SHAW.) 


has  been  extremely  active  in  the 
country,  building  a  large  number  of 
country  houses,  in  which  ideas  taken 
from  French  chateaux,  Belgian 
hotels-de-ville,  and  the  earlier  Eng- 
lish Renaissance  have  been  used 
with  great  skill,  vigor,  and  origi- 
nality. The  general  movement  of 
his  art  has  been  from  the  pictu- 
resque eclecticism  with  which  he  be- 
gan to  something  more  in  harmony 
with  the  genius  of  Inigo  Jones. 

And  in  this  he  has  carried  Eng- 
lish architecture  as  a  whole  with 
him.  For  at  last  our  best  architects, 
who  are,  in  great  part,  his  disciples, 
appear  to  have  settled  down  to  the 
conviction  that  their  true 
course  is  to  return  to  the 
path  pointed  out  by  Jones 
and  Wren,  and  to  develop 
that  form  of  Palladian  which 
was  shown  by  the  works  of 
those  two  men  to  be  suited 
to  our  wants,  character,  and 
climate.  During  the  last 
ten  or  fifteen  years  many 
important  buildings  have 
been  erected,  in  London  and 
the  provinces,  in  a  style  which  may  be  fairly  called  the  legitimate 

offspring  of  our  two  great 
architects.  Within  our  limits 
it  is  impossible  to  give  even  a 
bare  list  of  them  all,  and  I 
must  be  content  with  naming 
a  few  of  the  most  successful. 
Mr.  Belcher,  who  is  con- 
spicuous for  the  flexibility  of 
his  designing  power,  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  Institute  of 
Chartered  Accountants  (Fig. 
(sir  ASTON  WEBB.)  23 1 )    and    Electra    House 


FIG.    227. — KINMEL   PARK.      (nESFIELD.) 


FIG.    228. 


-NEW   COLLEGE   OF  SCIENCE,    SOUTH 
KENSINGTON. 


116 


MODERN  RENAISSANCE 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^P^ 

m 

Mis: 

mi.^^ 

-^m^d*-  " 

FIG.    229. — THE   WALDORF   HOTF.L. 
(MARSHALL-MACKENZIE.) 


(Fig.  233)  both  in  the  City,  as  well 
as  for  a  number  of  buildings  in 
which  something  that  approaches 
a  new  style — begotten,  appar- 
ently, of  a  sneaking  kindness 
for  the  new  art  of  Germany — 
is  employed.  '  Of  this  the 
newest  examples  are  Mappin's 
shop  in  Oxford  Street,  the  Medi- 
cal Association  building  in  the 
Strand,  and  the  Office  at  the 
North-Western  corner  of  St. 
James's  Street,  which  devotes 
the  last  corner  of  that  "  celebrated 
eminence "  to  insurance.  The 
chief  objection  to  these  designs 
is  one  based  on  the  practical 
limitations  of  the  human  mind  ! 
If  an  architect  could  invent  a  whole  style,  from  initial  principles 
to  the  last  decorative  detail,  he  would  be  free  to  design  as  he 
pleased.  But  so  far  no  such  man  has  appeared  in  this  world. 
The  most  daring  innovator  has 
found  himself  admitting  parts  of 
the  old  language,  twisting  them 
away  from  their  significance,  and, 
generally,  substituting  his  own  sic 
Volo  for  a  comprehensible  relation 
between  form  and  purpose.  Here 
and  there  in  London  streets  signs 
are  to  be  found  that  this  later 
style  has  drawn  followers  after 
it.  The  more  traditional  method 
governs  the  late  Mr.  Mountford's 
Central  Criminal  Court,  Mr. 
Marshall-Mackenzie's  Waldorf 
Hotel  (Fig.  229),  and  a  large 
number  of  other  buildings  by 
which  our  streets  are  being  rapidly 
transformed. 

An  important  group  of  designs 
are  those  connected  with  that 
outburst    of    official    activity    in 


117 


FIG.    230. — THE   GAIETV   THEATRE. 
(NORMAN   SHAW.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    231. — INSTITUTE    OF    CHARTERED 
ACCOUNTANTS.      (bELCHER.) 


building  which   may  possibly,    in    the  future,   come   to   be    looked 
upon    as    the    chief    claim    to    our    gratitude    of    the    governments 

between  1895  and  1906. 
Mr.  William  Young  be- 
came known  through  the 
work  he  did  at  Gosford, 
Midlothian,  at  Culford,  Suf- 
folk, and  at  Glasgow.  His 
Town  Hall  (Fig.  232)  in  the 
latter  city  is  not  entirely  sat- 
isfactory, mainly  because  the 
chief  front  compares  un- 
favorably with  the  sides. 
But  on  the  whole  the  build- 
ing is  magnificent,  inside  and 
out,  without  being  vulgar  or 
overcharged.  When  it  was 
resolved  that  the  disgraceful 
rookery  in  Pall  Mall,  which 
had  so  long  done  duty  as  a  War  Office,  should  disappear  and  be 
succeeded  by  a  palace  in  Whitehall,  the  resolution  to  entrust  a  proved 
architect  with  the  commission  was  not  surprising.  The  Admiralty  had 
been  the  result  of  a  competition,  and  had  given  London  a  most  con- 
venient office,  but  had  saddled  it  with  some  very  bad  architecture.  So 
Young  was  entrusted  with  the  War  Office,  and  J.  C.  Brydon,  another 

Scot,  was  commissioned  to 
provide  the  group  of  offices 
for  the  Board  of  Trade, 
Local  Government  Board, 
etc.,  at  the  corner  of  Parlia- 
ment Street  and  Parliament 
Square.  Young's  War  Of- 
fice (Fig.  234)  is  open  to 
criticism  for  a  certain  want 
of  congruity  between  design 
and  purpose,  but  on  the 
whole  it  has  largeness  and 
dignity  and  is  free  from  that 
pattern-book  character  which 
degrades  so  much  London 
architecture.  B  r  y  d  o  n  '  s 
palace     strikes     a     different 


fig.  232. — glasgow  town  hall, 
(young.) 


118 


MODERN  RENAISSANCE 


"electra"  building, 
(belcher.) 


note.  Commonplace  enough 
in  general  conception,  it  wins 
respect  by  the  refinement  of 
its  details  and  their  happy 
distribution.  The  circular 
court  may  have  been  inspired 
by  Inigo  Jones,  but  is  far 
inferior  to  the  corresponding 
feature  in  that  great  artist's 
Whitehall.  A  third  struct- 
ure, undertaken  at  about  the 
same  time  as  these  two,  is 
the  new  College  of  Science  at 
South  Kensington,  in  which 
Sir  Aston  Webb,  continuing 
his  progress  away  from  the 
paralysing  influence  of 
Waterhouse,  produced  a 
building  in  which  little  but 
true  Renaissance  feeling  is  to 
be  detected  (Fig.  228).  A  still  further  step  in  the  same  direction  may 
be  traced  in  his  design  for  the  very  ingenious  structure  now  being 
erected  at  the  end  of  the  Mall,  which  is  to  house  the  First  Lord 
and  First  Naval  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  and  to  disguise  the  break 
of  axis  in  the  avenue  from  Queen  Victoria's  statue  to  that  of  Charles 
the  Martyr.  The  more  private  buildings  which  have  been  erected 
at  the  same  time  as  all  these  public  structures  are  distinguished, 
for  the  most  part,  by  respect  for  the  tradition  of  English  renaissance. 
Experiments  in  styles 
drawn  from  climates  very 
different  from  ours  are 
much  less  frequent  than 
they  were,  and  Gothic 
has  practically  disap- 
peared from  the  secular 
field.  Among  the  better 
designs  which  have  been 
carried  out  since  the  new 
spurt  began,  we  may  name 
Mr.  Reginald  Blomfield's 
club  house  at  the  corner 

of  Suffolk  Street  and  Pall  hg.  234.— the  war  office,    (young.) 

119 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


fig.  235. united  kingdom 

provident  institution, 
(h.  t.  hare.) 


be  erected  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  from  the 
designs  of  Mr.  Ralph  Knott.  It  will  have  a  touch 
of  the  right  kind  of  originality  in  its  design,  the 
want  of  which  is  the  chief  defect  of  Sir  E.  Brum- 
well  Thomas's  rather  splendid  Town  Hall  at 
Belfast  (Fig.  224).  Here  the  reliance  on  Wren 
is  carried,  perhaps,  just  a  shade  too  far.  It  can- 
not   be 


Mall  (Fig.  237),  Mr.  F.  E.  Wimams;s 
blocks  in  Regent  Street  and  St.  James's 
Street,  Mr.  Atkinson's  great  red  and 
white  shop  in  Oxford  Street,  and  Mr. 
Keen's  Baptist  Church  House,  in  Hol- 
born.  A  large  number  of  other  build- 
ings have  been  put  up  in  London,  Edin- 
burgh, Glasgow,  and  elsewhere,  during 
the  last  decade,  which  give  evidence  of 
good  training, skill, and  readiness  to  think. 
Examples  of  this  will  be  found  among 
the  illustrations  to  this  chapter.  Within 
the  next  few  years 
we  are  promised 
another  serious 
addition  to  our 
public  monu- 
ments in  the 
County  Hall,  to 


fIG.    23').- 


—SHOP,    WIGMORE 
STREET. 


(WALLACE  AND  GIBSON.) 


237. united  university  club. 

Creg.  blomfield.) 


denied, 
howev- 
er, that 
its  Town  Hall  does  as  much 
for  Belfast  as  St.  Paul's  for 
London. 

While  these  men  and  many 
others  have  been  helping  to 
reestablish  the  English  tra- 
dition, a  good  deal  of  mistaken 
skill  has  been  lavished  on  struc- 
tures of  a  very  debatable  charac- 
ter, such  as  the  Imperial  Institute, 
the  new  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum,  and  the  new  Cathe- 


120 


MODERN  RENAISSANCE 


dral  of  Westminster — of  these,  the  two  last 
give  evidence  of  great  abihty  on  the  part  of 
their  creators,  but  the  designs  of  both  suffer 
from  the  same  radical  defect.  There  is  not 
enough  congruity  betv^^een  their  scope  and 
purpose  as  a  whole,  and  the  style  and  distinc- 
tion of  their  external  architecture.  A 
museum  consisting  of  a  few  enormous  halls 
has  no  business  with  domes,  minarets,  and 
pagodas  on  its  roof.  These  falsify  its  dec- 
laration of  purpose  and  interfere  with  that 
even  distribution  of  light  which  is  one  of  the 
first  requirements  of  exhibition  rooms.  Still 
less  should  a  church,  consisting  of  a  single 
imposing  hall,  be  packed  externally  with  a 
crowd  of  small  annexes,  inorganic  in  arrange- 
ment, and  over-delicate  in  detail.  The  ex- 
quisite taste, 
however,    of 


^3ii  1 

l^ffi 

«■ 

1 

lii 

} 

FIG.    238. — DOORWAY,    NEW- 
GATE  STREET. 


FIG.    239. — INSURANCE   BUILDING, 
EDINBURGH.       (j.   M.   DICK-PEDDIE.) 


the  late  Mr. 

Bentley's  detail,  goes  far  toward 
justifying  the  erection  of  a  Byzanto- 
Italian  Cathedral  almost  in  the 
shadow  of  Westminster  Abbey. 

But  perhaps  the  most  important, 
and  cer- 
tainly  the 
most    suc- 
cessf  ul. 


movement 
in  the  latest  phase  of  British  architecture, 
has  been  that  illustrated  by  the  countless 
country  houses,  large  and  small,  erected 
during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  Good 
planning  has  been  a  virtue  oi  English 
house-building  for  many  generations,  and 
now  to  that  virtue  thoughtfully  significant 
architecture  has  been  added.  The  styles 
most  commonly  used  are  a  playful  form 
of  English  Palladian  and  a  development 
from  the  late  Tudor,  by  which  it  was 
immediately  preceded.     We  may  give  as 

121 


FIG.    240. — DOORWAY. 
(lanchester  and  RICKARDS.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    241. — CHAMBERS   IN   ST.    JAMES  S   STREET. 
(nORMAN    SHAW.) 


ago  as  little  thought  as  possible  was  spent  on  such 

erections,  which 
were  turned  o  u  t 
on  much  the  same 
principle  as  quar- 
tern loaves  !  A 
great  change  has 
now  taken  place — 
all  over  the  country 
these  modest  un- 
dertakings are  be- 
ing carried  out  in 
a  spirit  which  at 
least  makes  for  art 
— o  f  t  e  n  ,  indeed, 
we  find  their 
creators  falling  into 
an  almost  excus- 
able mistake,  and 
make   some   village 


examples  of  the  two  styles 
the  new  house  at  Bryanston 
Park  built  for  Lord  Port- 
man  by  Mr.  Norman  Shaw 
and  the  house  in  Kensington 
Palace  Gardens  designed  for 
Lord  Cadisle  by  Mr.  Philip 
Webb. 

A  development  which 
makes  less  figure  in  t  h  e 
world,  but  can  by  no  means 
be  passed  over  in  silence,  is 
that  which  is  connected  with 
the  designing  of  small  houses, 
small  churches,  small  public 
buildings,  in  villages  and 
country  towns.    A  generation 


r 
i 

FIG.    242. — SHOP, 
EDINBURGH. 


FIG.    243. — COMMERCIAL    BANK    OF 
SCOTLAND,    GLASGOW. 
(SIDNEY   MITCHEL.) 


attemptmg  to 
church  or  hall 
carry  more  design  than  it  will  bear. 
But  the  old  indifference  is  dead,  or 
at  least  moribund,  and  hundreds  of 
illustrations  might  now  be  quoted  of 
modest  opportunities   happily   used. 

122 


MODERN  RENAISSANCE 

In  this  respect  the  palm  of  priority  must  be  awarded  to  Scotland. 
There — perhaps  as  a  result  of  the  "  feuing  "  system,  so  much  more 
favorable  to  the  tenant  than  that  of  **  building-leases  "—evidence 
of  thought  in  design  and  care  in  execution  has  been  visible  much 
longer  than  in  England.  Scottish  architects,  how^ever,  are  much 
less  eclectic  than  English  ;  they  have  an  almost  French  respect  for 
tradition,  and  variety  is  vastly  more  conspicuous  south  of  the 
Tv/eed  than  north.  The  result  is  that  Scotland,  as  a  whole,  is 
singularly  free  from  those  excursions  into  exotic  forms  of  building 
which  disfigure  all  the  greater  English  cities.  Practically,  the  only 
vagary  of  which  she  has  to  repent  is  the  endeavor  which  followed 
on  the  christening  of  Edinburgh  as  the  Northern  Athens,  to 
naturalize  Grecian  architecture  in  that  city  and — of  all  places — in 
smoky  Glasgow.  That  this  attempt  was  made  with  no  little  skill 
must  be  allowed,  but  its  results,  especially  in  the  commercial  capital, 
are  not  a  little  depressing. 


FIG.    244. — CHIMNEY   PIECE, 
(nORMAN   SHAW.) 


BIBUOGRAPHY 


For  further  information  on  the  subjects  of  this  chapter,  reference  can  only  be  made  to  current 
periodicals.  The  Architectural  Review,  The  Builder,  The  Architect,  Mons.  C.  Sedille's  Architec- 
ture contemporaine  en  Angleterre  (n.d.). 


123 


KG.   245.— ARUNDEL  MANUSCRIPT    NO.   83:     FOLIO    I31B.       (British   MuSCUm.) 


124 


FIG.  246. — PSALTER,  COTTON  MS. 

NERO  c.  XIV.     (British  Museum.) 


FIG.    247. — ARUNDEL  MANUSCRIPT, 

83:    FOLIO  132.     (British  Museum.) 


CHAPTER  XII 

CERTAIN  MINOR  ARTS 

Ironwork 

In  a  handbook  professing  to  deal  with  the  Fine  Arts,  no  great 
space  can  be  afforded  for  those  minor  activities  which,  at  their  best, 
cannot  shake  themselves  free  from  utilitarian  conditions.  And  yet, 
in  the  case  of  the  British  Islands,  they  cannot  be  passed  over  in 
silence,  for  they  help  to  fill  the  gap  which  has  already  been  so 
often  alluded  to. 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  artistic  industries  of  these  islands 
during  the  long  periods  which  elapsed  before  the  higher  forms 
of  art  began  to  develop  at  all.  Some  account  has  now  to  be 
given  of  certain  activities  practised  in  later  times,  side  by  side 
with  the  greater  arts  of  architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting. 

Few  industries  are  more  fascinating  than  that  based  on  iron.  The 
most  widely  distributed  of  metals,  iron  is  the  most  adaptable  of  all 
to  man's  various  wants.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  remarkably  perish- 
able if  not  carefully  nursed.  It  is  chiefly  in  consequence  of  this  latter 
defect  that  archaeologists  are  still  able  to  differ  so  profoundly  on  the 
questions  of  how  long  it  has  been  used,  and  how  widely  its  use 

123 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    248. TOMB    OF 

QUEEN    ELEANOR. 

(Westminster  Abbey.) 


was  distributed  at  various  epochs.  It  appears  to  be  fairly  certain  that 
the  Egyptians  were  acquainted  with  it  at  least  as  early  as  2000  B.C.* 
According  to  their  own  statements,  which, 
however,  are  not  to  be  implicitly  relied  on, 
the  Chinese  knew  it  at  least  as  soon.  In 
Mesopotamia  its  use  cannot  be  surely  traced 
beyond  about  1000  B.C.  In  Syria  it  was 
known  somewhat  earlier,  in  Greece  perhaps 
earlier  still,  and  in  India  at  least  as  early  as 
in  Greece.  How  soon  iron  working  entered 
into  the  metallurgy  of  Western  Europe  is  still 
uncertain,  our  damper  climates  being  more 
destructive  of  evidence  than  those  of  the  East. 
The  Phocasans  of  Marseilles  worked  iron 
mines  in  Spain  as  early  as  between  600 
and  500  B.C.  The  excavations  at  Bibracte 
have  revealed  an  ancient  Sheffield,  where 
iron  and  even  steel  were  manufactured.  The  Gauls  were  famous 
for  their  skill  in  working  iron  long  before  the  days  of  Ceesar,  and 
the  Britons  were  probably  but  little  their  inferiors.  In  both 
countries  iron  was  used  as  a  medium  of  exchange  in  the  form 
of  rings.  The  climate  of  these  islands  is  such  that  very  few  objects 
have  survived  from  those  Roman  days  which  have  yielded  rich 
harvests  further  south.  A  folding  chair  with  bronze  enrichments, 
a  few  andirons,  candelabra,  and  hinges  complete  our  catalogue. 
Coming  down  to  later  centuries,  when  varying  influences  from 
without — Scandinavian,  Danish,  Saxon — had  their  effects,  we  find 
that  the  progress  of  iron-working  is  still  to  be  chiefly  traced 
in  hinges.  These  were  more  easily  preserved  than  other  objects. 
They  were  securely  fixed  to  timber,  and  were  often  protected  from 
rust.  They  seem  to  have  taken  on  an  elaborate  form  sooner  in 
these  islands  than  elsewhere,  and  as  a  natural  consequence  preserved 
the  utilitarian  basis  of  their  ornament  longer.  Their  elementary 
form  was  that  of  an  iron  strap  embracing  the  door  on  both 
sides  and  folded  near  its  centre  round  the  pivot  let  into  the 
jamb.  To  this  were  added  side-pieces,  often  in  the  form  of 
a  crescent,  which  gave  a  stronger  hold  on  the  timber.  The  junc- 
tion of  these  straps  with  the  socket  itself  was  protected,  in  the 
case  of  English  doors,  by  the  overlapping  of  the  jamb,  which  put  the 

1  The  contention  that  as  they  were  able  to  carve  diorite,  syenite,  porphyry,  and  other  hard  rocks 
many  centuries  before  2000  B.C.,  they  must  have  known  and  used  iron,  is  quite  inconclusive ;  for 
given  unlimited  time  and  patience,  which  we  know  the  Egyptians  were  always  ready  to  put  into 
dieir  work,  the  hardest  rocks  can  be  shaped  without  iron. 

126 


IRONWORK 


weakest  part  of  the  combination  well  out  of  reach  of  violence.  An 
interesting  early  example  of  this  arrangement  is  to  be  seen  on  the 
door  of  Stillingfleet  Church,  Yorkshire,  where  the  working  parts 
are  combined  with  the  representation  of  a  viking  ship  and  other 
signs  meant  to  act  as  charms.  Another  ancient  specimen  is  the 
hinging  of  a  door  in  the  church  of  Willingale-Spain,  in  Essex,  with 
which  that  of  a  door  at  Eastwood,  near  Rockford,  in  the  same  county, 
may  be  associated.  Other  well-known  examples  are  at  Erith, 
Maxstoke,  Weston-Barton,  Margaret  Roding,  Compton-Norton, 
Leicester,  Kingston-Lisle,  Sparsholt,  Haddiscoe,  Kenilworth! 
Raveningham,  and  the  Cathedrals  of  Gloucester,  Hereford,  Peter- 
borough, and  Chichester.  Some  fine  hinges  from  St.  Alban's  are 
in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

All  these  are  examples  of  pure  smithery,  in  which  the  iron  is 
worked  with  hammer  alone.  They  were  succeeded  by  more 
complex  performances  in  which  stamps  were  used,  the  white-hot 
iron  being  driven  into  metal  dies.  This  second  style  was  carried  to 
great  perfection,  or  at  least  to  great  elaboration,  in  France,  where 
the  hmges  of  the  great  doors  of  Notre  Dame  remind  us  of  the 
Roman  scroll.  Stamped  work  in  England  was  never  so  ambitious. 
One  of  the  finest  examples  is  the  south  door  leading  to  the  cloisters, 
in  Durham  Cathedral.  But  this  appears  to 
be  of  French  origin,  although  more  English 
than  French  in  design.  Here  the  hinges  still 
supply  the  chief  motive,  but  as  time  went  on 
they  were  frequently  ignored  and  ironwork  put 
on  doors  as  mere  surface  decoration  and  re- 
enforcement.  Of  this  perhaps  the  most 
beautiful  English  example  is  supplied  by  the 
doorway  of  Worksop  Priory.  Here  the  door 
is  double,  the  design  resting  on  the  vertical 
lines  of  the  central  opening,  and  ignoring  the 
hinges.  This  specimen  dates  from  about  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  gave  motives 
to  many  other  works  of  the  same  class  in  Ox- 
fordshire, Herefordshire,  Somersetshire,  and 
elsewhere. 

Less  consecutive  than  hinges  in  their  illustration  of  progress, 
but  more  important  in  themselves,  are  the  grilles  which  formerly 
existed  in  such  vast  numbers  in  our  churches  and  cathedrals.  A 
peculiar  viciousness  seems  to  have  been  shown,  at  various  times, 
in  their  destruction,  and  comparatively  few  have  come  down  to  our 

127 


FIG.  249. — GATES  OF 
ALL  SOULS,  OXFORD. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


day.  Most  of  those  which  remain  are  built  up  of  iron  straps  turned 
into  spirals,  loops,  quatrefoils,  and  other  simple  forms,  held  together 
by  collars  and  set  in  rectangular  iron  frames  protected  by  spikes  at 
the  top,  and  sometimes  strengthened  by  flat  bands  of  pierced  iron. 
Good  specimens  are  the  choir  grille  in  Lincoln  Cathedral,  a  tomb 
grille  at  St.  Albans,  a  grille  from  Chichester  Cathedral  in  the 
South  Kensington  Museum,  and  the  fine  grille  of  St.  Swithin, 
at  Winchester,  which  is  the  oldest  as  well  as  the  finest  work  of 
its  own  class  now  extant.  It  dates  from  the  last  years  of  the 
eleventh  century.  The  most  important  of  all  remaining  grilles, 
however,  is  the  "  herse "  over  Queen  Eleanor's  tomb  in  West- 
minster Abbey  (Fig.  248).  It  belongs  to  the  class  of  stamped 
work,    and   is   the   only   early   specimen   either   in   England   or  the 

royal  domain  in  France 
(to  which  for  a  long 
period  the  method  was 
practically  confined)  the 
date  of  which  is  known. 
It  was  made  in  1294 
by  Thomas  de  Legh- 
tone  (Thomas  of  Leigh- 
ton  Buzzard)  for  the 
sum  of  £13.  A  con- 
sideration of  dates  and 
other  matters  makes  it 
likely  that  this  kind  of 
work  originated  i  n 
England,  that  French 
promptness,  carried  it  to 
hinges,    and    then 


250. — SCREEN   I  ROM   ST.    JOHN'S,    FROME. 

(Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.) 


smiths   seized   upon   it   with    their   usual 

the    extravagant    richness    of    the    Notre    Dame 

dropped  it  in  default  of  patrons  for  anything  so  costly. 

The  thirteenth  was  the  blacksmith's  great  century.  His  aesthetic 
ambitions  were  then  fully  developed,  and  progress  had  not  3'et  pro- 
vided him  with  a  royal  road  to  any  of  his  effects.  All  the 
operations  which  intervened  between  the  delivery  at  his  forge  of 
rough  bars  of  iron  and  the  production  of  such  a  work  as  the  St. 
Swithin's  grille,  had  to  be  performed  with  his  own  hand,  under  the 
control  of  his  own  fallible  but  masterful  eye.  Putting  aside  stamped 
work,  his  material  and  his  way  of  using  it  were  as  expressive  as  the 
painter's,  and  so,  to  the  modern  student,  his  productions  have  an  ever- 
growing charm.     To  quote  Mr.  Starkie  Gardiner  :^     "The  quick  and 

^Ironwork:  South  Kensington  Handbook,   1907. 

128 


IRONWORK 


FIG.   251.— CANADA  GATES,   BUCKINGHAM   PALACE. 

decisive  treatment  of  iron  while  it  is  transiently  in  a  plastic  condition 
must  be  regarded  as  the  true  art  of  the  blacksmith,  and  of  necessity  leads 
to  vigorous  and  masculine  effects.  The  tools  of  the  smithy  proper 
consist  of  forge  and  bellows,  hammer  and  anvil,  tongs  and  chisels." 

With  the  fourteenth  century  new  methods  and  new  tools  came  to 
complicate  his  practice,  and  to  deprive  it  of  not  a  little  of  its 
spontaneity  and  individuality.  The  use  of  iron  as  a  decorative 
feature  began,  probably,  in  this  country,  whence  it  spread  south- 
ward and  westward.  But  English  ironworkers  lost  their  supremacy, 
partly  through  the  general  failure  of  art  in  the  early  fifteenth 
century,  partly  through  the  more  active  ambition  of  their  Continental 
rivals.  In  the  use  of  iron  for  purposes  which  exactly  fitted  it, 
they  were  equalled  only  by  the  French.  In  forcing  the  powers 
of  iron,  and  employing  it  in  ways  better  suited  to  wood  or  to  more 
ductile  materials,  they  were  left  far  behind.  The  history  of  metal- 
working  in  England,  as  a  spontaneous  expression  of  cesthetic  ideas, 
comes  to  a  temporary  end  with  the  commencement  of  the  two 
centuries  of  political  and  religious  trouble  which  intervened  between 
1450  and  1650.  In  later  times  it  was  re-inspired  from  abroad  and 
produced  much  fine  work,  in  which  the  restraint  and  propriety 
of  English  taste  is  again  conspicuous  ;  but  it  could  no  longer  boast 
any  strong,  native  character,  while  it  fell  short  of  its  rivals  in  that 
magnificence  which  in  some  degree  atones  for  impropriety.  In  our 
own  day  ironwork,  like  other  arts,  has  sprung  into  new  and  energetic 
life,  and  is  producing  results  which  are  often  quite  admirable.  The 
revival  has  much  to  contend  with  ;  especially  in  the  damage  done  to 
the  public  taste  by  the  presence  of  so  many  bad  and  ambitious 
designs  in  cast  iron  in  conspicuous  places  (the  Coalbrookdale  gates 
near  the  Albert  Memorial  in  Hyde  Park,  those  in  the  Marble  Arch 
and  the  arch  at  the  top  of  Constitution  Hill,  for   instance).     But 

129  K 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  252. LEAD   URN, 

PARHAM    (BLOMFIELD). 


such  iron  work  as  the  new  grilles  between  choir  ond  choir  aisle  in 
St.  Paul's,  the  Canada  gates  (Fig.  251)  at  Buckingham  Palace  and 
those  in  the  new  Government  Offices  in 
Whitehall,  and  Bentley's  beautiful  bronze 
screen  to  one  of  the  side  chapels  in  West- 
minster Cathedral,  are  distinctly  encouraging 
for  the  future. 

Enamels. 

Little  if  any  light  is  thrown  upon  the 
course  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  this  country  by 
what  is  left  of  our  native  enamels.  Docu- 
ments, indeed,  seem  to  prove  that  the  trade 
of  the  enameller  flourished  here  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  his  work  never  ap- 
pears to  have  risen  to  the  confines  of  the 
Fine  Arts,  as  it  did  in  Italy,  France,  and 
Germany.  As  industrial  arts,  the  Celtic 
enamellers  (Figs.  253-5)  occupy  a  high 
place,  and  in  later  centuries  the  method  was  effectually  used  for  the 
decoration  of  utilitarian  objects.  The  enamelled  brasses  (candle- 
sticks, andirons,  etc.)  of  the  Tudor  and  Jacobaean  periods  are  often 
effective,  and  the  Battersea  enamellers  of  the  eighteenth  century 
show  a  pleasing  fancy  allied  to  much  skill  at  their  metier,  but 
only  by  the  production  of  portrait  minia- 
tures, after  the  Petitots  had  shown  the 
way,  can  English  enamelling  claim  a  place 
among  the  Fine  Arts.  During  the  last 
five  and  twenty  or  thirty  years  it  has,  of 
course,  shared  in  the  general  revival  of 
all  forms  of  art,  but  has  so  far  been 
practically  restricted  to  decoration. 

Stained  Glass. 

Perhaps  the  most  attractive  of  all  the 
subsidiary  arts  is  that  of  producing  in  stained 
and  painted  glass  a  crown  and  complement 
to  architecture.  Those  who  have  wandered 
for  hours  or  days  in  the  great  cathedrals 
which  still  wear  their  crown  of  color,  in 
York,  or  Chartres,  or  Le  Mans,  or  the  comparatively  humble  fane 
at  Gouda,  look  back,  I  think,  on  the  glass  as  the  vitalizing  feature 

130 


FIG.    253. — TARA   BROOCH. 

(Dublin  Museum.) 


STAINED  GLASS 


I 


FIG.  254. — CELTIC    ENAMEL,    FROM    POLDEN    HILL 

(British  Museum.) 


of  the  whole.  It  is  to  a  church  what  the  eye  is  to  the  human  face. 
And  yet  it  is,  or  ought  to  be,  strictly  subordinate.  The  architect 
should  strike  the  note  and  the 
glazier  dance  to  his  pipe. 
Those  ensembles  are  the  most 
satisfactory  in  which  this  prin- 
ciple has  been  most  intelli- 
gently followed. 

Endeavors  have  been 
made  to  refer  the  art  of  stained- 
glass  window-making  to  the 
East,  like  so  many  arts.  Links 
are  missing,  however,  in  the 
chain  of  proof.  The  glass  mosaics  set  in  plaster  tracery  of  Saracenic 
buildings  are,  no  doubt,  the  offspring  of  an  old  tradition,  but  the 
desire  to  bring  the  large  openings  necessary  in  European  climates 
into  the  scheme  of  decoration  was  a  force  unknown  in  the  blaze 
of  Eastern  light. 

The  fashion  in  Western  Europe  seems  to  have  started  somewhat 
abruptly,  and  may,  perhaps,  be  traced  as  much  to  a  sudden 
perception  that  architecture  might  be  illuminated  as  well  as  the 
mass  books,  as  to  a  slow  evolution  like  that  of  architecture  itself. 
The  earliest  glass  we  can  point  to  is  by  no  means  the  work  of  men 
feeling  their  way.  It  has  been  asserted  that  the  art  was  first 
practised  in  France,  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Charlemagne.  But  of 
that  there  is  no  real  evidence.  The  earliest  glass  now  in  existence 
dates  from  the  twelfth  century,'  but  very  little,  if  any,  of  that  date  can 
be  identified  in  England.  The 
thirteenth  century,  however,  has 
left  us  a  rich  legacy  in  glass  —  at 
Canterbury,  York,  Lincoln,  Salis- 
bury, etc. — and  in  the  fourteenth, 
the  art  was  more  active  here  than 
elsewhere,  French  activity  being  for 
a  time  more  or  less  arrested.  It  was 
not  until  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
century  and  beginning  of  the  four- 
teenth that  Germany  took  the  art 
seriously. 

During  the  Perpendicular  period  an  immense  amount  of  glass  was 

'  The  Germans  claim  a  date  as   early  as  the  eleventh  century  for   certain   un-beautiful  windows 
ia  Augsburg  Cathedral,  but  the  claim  has  not  yet  been  generally  acknowledged. 

131  K  2 


255. — ARDAGH   CHALICE. 

(Dublin  Museum.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


produced  in  England,  especially  after  the  accession  of  Henry  IV. 
This  activity  continued  down  to  the  Renaissance  period,  during 
which,  however,  much  of  the  best  glass  now  in  this  country  appears 
to  have  been  imported  from  abroad,  from  France  and  Belgium. 
The  magnificent  windows  of  King's  College,  Cambridge,  were 
probably  Flemish  in  their  origin,  although  of  native  manufacture.^ 
Contracts  for  them  still  exist.  From  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century  down  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth,  the  art  was  in  the 
slough  of  despond.  Wrong  ideas  prevailed  for  two  centuries  and 
a  half,  and  when  at  last  the  right  conception  again  struggled  to  the 
surface,  it  took  a  whole  generation  to  purify  itself  and  learn  to  make 
a  window  which  could  be  looked  at  without  horror  by  those 
familiar  with  ancient  glass. 

The  art  divides  itself,  historically,  into  periods  corresponding  to 
those  of  pointed  architecture  itself.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  its  whole 

course,  like  that  of  the  architec- 
ture to  which  it  formed  a  crown, 
is  one  continuous  transition,  so 
that  if  life  were  long  enough  and 
patience  inexhaustible,  all  the 
glass  in  the  country  might  be 
arranged  into  an  unbroken  table 
of  chronological  precedence. 

Speaking  more  or  less  roughly, 
however,  Gothic  glass  may  be 
thus  divided  : — 
Decorated,     1300    to    1380: 


FiG.    256. — SYON   COPE. 

(Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.) 


Early    Pointed,     1180    to    1300 
Perpendicular,  1380  to  1520. 

A  few  fragments  of  a  date  earlier  than  about  1  1 80  have  been 
called  Byzantine,  while  Renaissance  feeling  becomes  so  strong  after 
1 520  that  the  epithet  Gothic  has  to  drop  out. 

The  First  Pointed  window  was  a  mosaic  of  colors,  of  small 
pieces  of  pot-metal  glass  set  in  strips  of  lead,  the  latter  following  and 
making  out  the  design.  The  glass  was  also  painted,  but  the  paint 
was  restricted  to  the  work  of  helping  out  the  forms  suggested 
by  leading  and  color,  and  was  never  used  as  a  substitute  for  care 
in  the  management  of  these  latter  elements.  The  purely  decorative 
parts  of  early  windows  were  usually  in  grisaille,  with  little  admixture 
of  positive  color.     On  the  other  hand,  their  pictorial  parts — figures 


-  The  cartoons  for  these  windows  have  lately  been  ascribed,  with  some  show  of  justification,  to  the 
Antwerp  glass-p>ainter,  Dirick  Jacopssone  Vellert,  who  was  identical  with  the  engraver  known  as 
Dirk  van  Staren  from  his  monogram.     (See  Burlington  Magazine  for  October,  1907.) 

132 


STAINED  GLASS 

and   backgrounds — were   as   deep,    rich,    and   positive   in   color   as 
was  consistent  with  transparency. 

The  general  design  of  First  Pointed  windows  falls  into  four 
classes  : — 

1 .  Windows  entirely  in  grisaille. 

2.  Medallion  windows,  in  which  pictures  of  medallion  form 
and  character  were  set  in  a  decorative  framework. 

3.  Figure  windows,  with  sacred  personages  standing  under 
feigned  canopies  and  in  feigned  architectural  settings. 

4.  Jesse  windows,  in  which  the  genealogy  of  Christ  was  set  out 
more  or  less  in  the  form  of  a  heraldic  tree. 

Besides  the  indications  given  by  these  definitions,  First  Pointed 
glass  may  be  distinguished  by  the  conventional  character  of  the 
detail,  especially  of  the  foliations,  and  by  the  use  of  hatched 
backgrounds,  which,  while  lowering  the  general  tone  and  pulling 
the  design  together,  not  only  did  not  interfere  with  the  brilliancy  of 
the  glass,  but  actually  enhanced  it. 

The  second,  or  Decorated,  period  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
first  by  various  developments. 

1 .  Windows  become  more  pictorial  in  general  conception,  the 
design  being  often  so  schemed  as  to  embrace  several  "  lights." 

2.  The  colors  are  brighter  and  gayer,  admitting  more  daylight. 

3.  Figures  are  better  drawn  and  more  naturally  posed. 

4.  The  ornamental  foliage  is  more  imitative  of  real  plants. 

5.  The  leading  becomes  actually  lighter,  although,  in  consequence 
of  increased  delicacy  in  the  painting  and  the  more  transparent  glass, 
it  asserts  itself  more  than  before. 

In  England  the  finest  Decorated  glass  is  to  be  found  in  Merton 
Chapel,  Oxford  ;  in  the  Chapter  House,  nave,  and  presbytery  of 
York  Minster  ;  at  Tewkesbury,  Wells,  Salisbury,  Gloucester,  and 
Bristol. 

The  third,  or  Perpendicular,  period  is  more  national  in  its 
characteristics  than  its  predecessors.  An  English  Perpendicular 
window  is  much  more  easily  distinguished  from  a  contemporary 
French  or  German  one  than  an  example  from  the  first  or  second 
period.     The  distinctive  features  are  : — 

1.  The  diminished  significance  of  the  leads,  which  are  divorced 
from  the  design  more  than  ever  before. 

2.  The  increased  pictorial  quality  of  the  conception  as  a  whole. 

3.  The  presence,  in  the  feigned  architecture,  of  those  Perpen- 
dicular elements  which  prevail  in  the  real  stone  architecture  of  the 
same  period. 

133 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    257. — COPE   or   ST.    SILVESTER,    ST.    JOHN   LATERAN,    ROME. 

The  typical  Perpendicular  window  represents,  or  suggests,  a  collec- 
tion of  niches,  or  screen,  of  silvery-white  tabernacle  work,  filled  with 
richly  colored  figures  against  colored  backgrounds.  A  great  window 
of  this  style  is,  in  short,  a  translucent  picture  of  one  of  the  great  archi- 
tectural screens  of  the  period,  such  as  the  Wallingford  Screen  at  St. 
Albans,  or  the  screens  of  Magdalen,  All  Souls',  and  New  Colleges 
at  Oxford.  The  combination  of  almost  white  tabernacle  work  with 
colored  figures  fulfils  both  practical  and  artistic  requirements,  for  the 
architectonic  frame  lets  in  plenty  of  light,  while  the  color  decorates 
magnificently. 

England  is  rich  in  fine  glass  from  this  third  period.  The 
city  of  York  is  a  perfect  museum  of  it  ;  not  only  the  Cathedral, 
but  many  other  churches,  especially  that  of  All  Saints,  North 
Street,  being  rich  in  Perpendicular  glass.  The  old  windows  in  the 
ante-chapel  of  New  College,  Oxford,  among  which  the  Reynolds 
**  Nativity  "  looks  such  an  unhappy  intruder,  are  fine  specimens  of 
the  style  in  its  early  years.  All  Souls  also  has  some  good  glass  of 
this  period  ;  so  have  the  Abbey  Church  of  Great  Malvern,  the 
Cathedral  at  Winchester,  and  a  very  large  number  of  other  churches. 

With  the  close  of  their  true  architectonic  evolution,  storied 
windows  lost  their  decorative  character  and  began  a  disastrous 
rivalry  with  the  freest  of  the  fine  arts.  Those  characteristics  which 
bound  them  to  the  architecture  in  which  they  were  set  were  system- 
atically suppressed.  Leads  were  avoided  as  far  as  possible  and 
finally    discdnnected    from    design.     Pot-metal*    was    superseded    by 

*  Glass  of  which  the  coloring  matter  has  been  introduced  among  the  original  ingredients  before 
fusion. 

134 


NEEDLEWORK 

enameHed  glass,  with  a  consequent  loss  both  of  translucence  and  safety. 
Painted  detail  was  elaborated  for  its  own  sake,  and  realism  intro- 
duced into  elements  from  which  it  should  have  been  carefully  ex- 
cluded. In  England  the  best  examples  of  Renaissance  glass  are  either 
wholly  or  partially  of  foreign  origin.  Lichfield  Cathedral  possesses 
some  fine  Flemish  windows.  There  are  many  at  Oxford  and  Coven- 
try. King's  College  Chapel,  Cambridge,  is  a  museum  of  Transition 
and  Renaissance  glass,  dating  from  1516-30. 

From  the  end  of  the  Perpendicular  period  down  to  late  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  true  architectonic  art  of  stained-glass  window- 
making  was  held  down  in  this  country  by  all  sorts  of  false  ideals. 
During  the  Renaissance  period  and  the  long  years  of  unhappy 
experiment  by  which  it  was  followed,  nothing  was  produced  with 
any  national  cachet.  It  was  not  until  half  the  nineteenth  century 
had  rolled  away  that  glimmerings  of  the  right  spirit  began  to  show 
over  the  horizon,  and  foundations  were  laid  for  that  evolution  which 
has  at  last  enabled  us  both  to  appreciate  the  work  of  our  fore- 
bears and  to  produce  something  not  entirely  alien  to  it  in  principle. 

Needlework  and  Tapestry. 

It  is  doubtful,  perhaps,  whether  any  full  justification  can  be 
produced  for  including  tapestry  and  needlework  in  a  manual  of  the 
fine  arts.  In  treating  British  art,  however,  it  is  peculiarly  de- 
sirable that  they  should  not  be  passed  over  in  silence,  for  they  afford 
the   best   support   to   our   contention    that    these    islands    were    by 


FIG.    258. — ASCOLI  COPE. 


no  means  such  laggards  in  aesthetic  activity  as  some  of  our  critics, 
and  not  least  our  native  ones,  contend.     They  may  be  taken,  together 

135 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

with  the  production  of  illuminated  manuscripts,  to  show  that  during 
the  ages  of  the  untroubled  Christian  Church,  artists  were  as  active 
and  numerous,  proportionately,  on  this  side  of  the  English  Channel  as 
on  the  other.  The  works  of  the  needle  and  of  the  illuminator's 
brush  survive  when  more  self-assertive  things  perish.  Shrines, 
statues,  stained-glass  windows,  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  fanatic's 
club.  They  can  neither  escape  nor  resist.  A  cope  or  a  manuscript 
can  do  both  ;  it  can  take  a  blow  without  much  damage,  or  it  can 
hide.  As  a  result  we  have  copes  and  manuscripts  in  sufficient  quan- 
tity to  prove  that  the  sap  of  art  rose  vigorously  in  the  English  tree, 
and  that  if  we  cannot  rival  our  nearest  neighbors  in  the  volume  of 
our  contribution  to  the  world's  treasure  of  mediaeval  art,  it  is  less 
because  we  failed  as  artists,  than  because  we  had  our  turmoils 
at  unlucky  moments  and  our  wealth  too  soon. 

Spinning,  weaving,  and  the  use  of  the  needle  were  known  in 
these  islands  in  very  remote  times.  Perforated  spindle  whorls  and 
heavy  combs  for  driving  the  weft  close  on  the  warp  have  been 
found  among  the  neolithic  deposits,  while  discoveries  made  in 
Switzerland  have  proved  that  flaxen  thread  was  known  to  the  lake- 
dwellers.  Once  the  knowledge  of  weaving  established,  art  came  as 
a  matter  of  course.  The  use  of  thread  could  not  persist  very  long 
without  suggesting  the  first  experiments  in  pattern,  and  these  experi- 
ments would  presently  be  enriched  in  the  light  of  what  older 
civilizations  were  doing  in  the  same  direction.  The  characteristic 
design  of  our  earliest  historical  civilization  appears  to  have  been 
tartan,  which  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  developed  condition 
in  the  clan  tartans  of  Scotland.  Boadicea  wore  a  tartan  robe 
on  the  day  of  her  disaster,  as — according  to  Dion  Cassius — did 
the  bulk  of  her  people.  Industries  like  spinning,  weaving,  em- 
broidering, and  the  making-up  of  stuffs  so  provided  into  garments, 
involved  art,  so  long  as  the  work  was  done  by  individuals,  without 
machinery.  Art  did  not  require  to  be  introduced.  It  sprang  up 
of  itself,  as  soon  as  human  beings  found  materials  between  their  fingers 
to  which  variety  could  easily  be  given,  according  to  their  own 
tastes  and  predilections. 

One  of  the  earliest  needleworkers  of  whom  we  have  any  real 
knowledge  is  the  Empress  Helena,  the  mother  of  Constantine,  and 
a  British  princess.  She  embroidered  a  figure  of  the  Virgin  which 
still  exists  in  the  Church  of  Vercelli  (Bock,  Liturgische  GeWdnder). 
Helena  died  in  the  fourth  century  a.D.  It  is  probable  that  the 
women  of  Britain  were  skilled  weavers  and  embroiderers  by  that  time, 
as  we  know  they  were  three  centuries  later.     Even  in  the  sixth  century 

136 


NEEDLEWORK 


classes  were  formed  for  the  execution  of  embroideries  for  the  Church, 
and  long  before  the  Norman  Conquest  the  work  of  the  English 
ladies  was  famous  all  over  the  Continent.  The  Danish  inroads 
helped,  no  doubt,  to  confine  artistic  industries  more  closely  to  convents 
and  monasteries,  than  in  Continental  countries.  The  most  celebrated 
relic  of  ancient  English  needlework  is  the  so-called  Bayeux  Tapestry, 
which  is,  of  course,  not  tapestry  at  all.  Its  artistic  merit  is  far  inferior 
to  that  of  other  English  works  of  about  the  same  period,  and  even 
earlier.  The  beautiful  Anglo-Saxon  stole  and  maniple  of  St. 
Cuthbert,  at  Durham,  dates  from  about  the  year  910.  We  know 
from  the  chronicles  that  the  English  ladies,  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  were 
patiently  piling  up  a 
great  wealth  of 
needlework  all 
through  the  Gothic 
centuries.  The  names 
of  many  survive. 
Among  them  were 
/Elfled.  Queen  of 
Edward  the  Elder, 
whose  name  appears 
on  the  s  t  o  1  e  of  St. 
Cuthbert.  Another 
y^lfled  (or  /Ethel- 
fleda)  gave  a  pictured 
hanging  to  Ely  Ca- 
thedral, St.  Dunstan 
is  said  to  have  de- 
signed embroideries  to  be  executed  by  /Edelwyrme,  a  noble  lady 
of  his  acquaintance  ;  Emma,  wife  of  Ethelred,  and  afterward 
of  Cnut,  and  /Elgitha,  Cnut's  first  Queen,  were  generous  donors  of 
embroideries  to  the  Church;  Editha,  the  Confessor's  wife,  em- 
broidered his  coronation  robe.  It  is  on  record  that  the  Con- 
queror and  his  companions  were  astonished  by  the  splendid  em- 
broideries they  found  worn  by  the  Saxon  nobles.  These  the 
Normans  and  their  ladies  began  at  once  to  collect  and  imitate.  It  is 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  needlework  of  every  kind  was  to  the 
gentlewomen  of  Britain  in  the  Gothic  centuries  what  sport  is  in 
these  days  of  progress.  The  wealth  of  the  English  cathedrals  in  all 
sorts  of  embroidery  was  amazing.  The  Lincoln  catalogue  shows 
that  at  the  Reformation  the  Cathedral  owned  between  six  and  seven 

137 


FIG.    259. — OPUS   ANGLICANUM. 

(British  Museum.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


hundred  figured  vestments,  richly  wrought  of  the  finest  materials,  and 
other  cathedrals  were  scarcely  less  rich. 

A  certain  number  of  English  embroideries  have  survived,  mostly 
in  cathedrals  and  other  storehouses 
abroad,  which  go  to  prove  by  their 
exquisite  beauty  that  English  art  was 
no  less  flourishing  a  tree  than  that  of 
any  Continental  country.  The  cope  of 
St.  Silvester  in  S.  Giovanni  Laterano, 
the  cope  in  the  Bologna  Town  Museum, 
the  Daroca  cope  at  Madrid,  the  Syon 
Monastery  cope  in  the  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum,  to  which  I  would  add 
the  famous  Ascoli  cope,  which  has  seen 
so  many  curious  vicissitudes,  and  the 
Toledo  cope — all  these  and  a  number 
of  less  important  relics  show  a  form  of 
art,  at  once  national  and  elaborately 
developed,  which  could  never  have 
sprung  up  in  any  country  but  one  rich 
in  artistic  industries. 

"  Opus  Anglicanum  "  began  to  be 
famous  in  the  twelfth  century  ;  at  least 
its  fame  then  began  to  be  so  great  as 
to  win  mention  in  the  chronicles.  Its  vogue  continued  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  its  productions  were  eagerly  sought  after 
all  over  Europe.  Its  characteristics  were  the  union  of  fine  taste 
in  design  with  a  quite  unprecedented  audacity  in  the  plastic  use 
of  stitchcry. 

A  fine  and  wonderfully  well-preserved  fragment  (Fig.  259), 
dating  from  the  fourteenth  century,  was  given  to  the  British  Museum 
by  the  late  Sir  Augustus  Franks,  but  the  finest  pieces  are  mostly  in 
foreign  treasuries.  The  glory  of  English  needlework  disappeared, 
like  that  of  so  many  other  artistic  industries,  in  the  first  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  to  be  revived,  indeed,  under  the  Tudors,  but 
then  no  longer  in  its  purely  national  condition. 

The  history  of  tapestry  in  England  is  in  the  same  condition  as 
that  of  too  many  other  artistic  industries. 

We  know  from  documentary  evidence  that  English  looms  were  at 
work  all  through  the  Middle  Ages.  In  1344  a  law  was  passed  for 
their  regulation.  Fifty  years  later  the  Earl  of  Arundel  disposed  by 
will  of  a  set  of  hangings  which  had  been  woven  for  him  in  London. 

138 


FIG.    260. — DUTAlh,   COPE   OF   ST. 

SILVESTER,    ST.    JOHN   LATERAN, 

ROME. 


IVORIES 

In  1495  a  hanging  was  made  for  Canterbury  Choir,  which  is  now 
at  Aix,  in  Provence.  Early  in  the  sixteenth  century  a  manufactory 
was  set  up  at  B  arches  ton,  in  Warwickshire,  and  in  the  reign  of 
James  I  the  famous  manufactory  was  estabUshed  at  Mortlake,  where 
hangings  second  to  none  for  firmness  of  execution  and  the  beauty  of 
their  borders  were  made.  Here  were  woven  sets  from  the  cartoons 
of  Raphael,  acquired  from  the  Brussels  weaver  who  had  woven  the 
set  for  the  Sistine  Chapel  at  Rome.  These  were  commissioned  by 
Charles  I,  who  had  bought  the  cartoons,  it  is  said,  on  the  advice  of 
Rubens.  Many  of  the  tapestries  themselves  are  now  in  the  Garde 
Meuhle  at  Paris.  A  fine  suit  of  Mortlake  tapestries  is  at  Hard- 
wicke  Hall.  One  or  two  attempts  have  been  made  since  the 
Mortlake  enterprise  came  to  an  end  to  revive  the  art  in  England. 
The  most  serious  of  these  was  the  founding  of  a  low-warp  manu- 
factory at  Old  Windsor,  some  thirty  years  ago,  with  the  help  of 
workmen  from  Beauvais  and  Aubusson.  Its  products  were  good 
in  execution,  but  poor  in  design,  and  its  life  was  short. 


Ivories 


Until  quite  recently  it  was  the  almost  invariable  custom  to  refer 
every  northern  mediaeval  ivory  the  origin  of  which  was  not  documente 
to  either  the  French  or  the  Flemings  ;  and  yet  there  is  abundant 
proof  that  Gothic  England  possessed  numbers  of  ivory  carvers  and 
that  their  productions  were 
highly  popular.  The  vicissi- 
tudes of  the  Church  in  this 
country  led,  of  course,  to  the 
destruction  of  vast  numbers 
of  ecclesiastical  objects,  such 
as  pastoral  staves  and  crosiers, 
pixes  and  paxes,  private 
shrines  and  altars.  But  enough 
have  survived  to  prove  that, 
during  the  great  period,  from 
about  1280  to  about  1420, 
our  native  artists  were  not 
inferior  to  their  Continental 
rivals    in    skill.     During    t  h  e 

last    decade    or    two    the    characteristics    of    our    native    production 
have  been  gradually  recognized.     English  ivories  are  distinguished 

139 


FIG.    261. — TAPESTRY    AT   HATFIELD. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


f^.^^f 


h 


FIG.    262. — IVORY  TRIPTYCH. 

(British  Museum.) 


by  more  sobriety  of  conception  and  earnest  simplicity  of  expression 
than  French,  Flemish,  and  German  examples,  while  the  archi- 
tectural details  introduced  supply  another  test  of  origin. 

The  objects  to  which  the  mediaeval 
ivory  carver  devoted  himself  were  the 
same  in  England  as  elsewhere  :  the 
smaller  items  of  church  furniture  ; 
horns,  to  which  the  form  of  a  tusk 
lent  itself  so  kindly  ;  statuettes  ;  combs  ; 
book-covers  ;  mirror-cases  ;  small  boxes, 
caskets,  or  pixes  ;  chessmen,  etc. 

The  most  interesting  specimen  of 
very  early  carving  at  present  known 
is  a  casket  presented  to  the  British 
Museum  by  the  late  Sir  Augustus 
Franks.  It  is  not  of  ivory,  however, 
but  of  the  bone  of  the  whale.  It  has 
panels  with  scenes,  probably  from  the 
Saga  of  Odoacer,  fitted  with  fine  decorative  effect  into  boldly  carved 
runic  inscriptions  (Imelmann).  A  magnificent  early  carving  in 
whale's  bone  is  the  Saxon  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  of  about  1000, 
in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  (see  title-page). 

An  interesting  and  somewhat  mysterious  find  of  ivories  was  the 
discovery,  about  ninety  years  ago,  in  the  Lewis 
(Hebrides),  of  a  large  number  of  chessmen 
carved  in  walrus  ivory.  The  find  consisted  of 
six  kings,  five  queens,  thirteen  bishops,  fourteen 
knights,  nineteen  pawns,  and  ten  warders,  the 
forerunners  of  the  modern  rook  or  castle. 
One  would  say  it  was  the  stock  of  some  carver, 
who  profited  by  the  frequent  opportunities  of 
acquiring  his  material  which  occurred  in  that 
northern  latitude.  One  of  the  finest  examples 
of  early  English  ivory  carving  is  a  fragment 
which  appears  to  have  been  the  arm  of  a  chair, 
formerly  in  the  great  Meyrick  collection  at 
Goodrich  Court.  It  is  of  walrus  ivory  and 
exquisite  both  in  design  and  workmanship. 
Pastoral  staves  and  crosiers  of  ivory  were  prob- 
ably not  uncommon  in  the  Gothic  centuries, 
but  very  few  have  survived.  The  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum, 
however,    possesses    one    which    is    closely    related    to    the    bronze 

140 


%^>l 


^' 


r--^^^. 


j^^ 


-r 


FIG.  263. DEXTER  LEAF 

OF    A   DIPTYCH. 

(British  Museum.) 


ILLUMINATED  MANUSCRIPTS 


crosiers  of  various  degrees  of  elabora- 
tion which  have  come  dow^n  to  us 
from  the  same  period.  It  also  pos- 
sesses a  wonderful  diptych  in  open 
tabernacle  work,  in  which  skill  and 
design  go  hand  in  hand. 

Fine  examples  of  the  English 
school  of  the  fourteenth  century  are 
in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum 
(Fig.  294)  and  the  British  Museum 
(Figs.  262,  263) — a  triptych  and 
one  leaf  of  a  diptych,  both  carved 
for  Bishop  Grandison,  of  Exeter. 
The  Gothic  ivories  in  the  Ashmolean, 
at  Oxford,  appear  to  be  nearly  all 
English  ;  and  good  examples  are 
now  frequently  being  separated  (as  ^^°-  '^^(■frintt^^CoUe'^e 
a  chemist  would  say)  from  their  non- 
English  companions.  A  splendid  diptych,  ajoure,  in  the  Salting 
collection,  in  an  Italian  frame,  may  be  claimed  as  English. 


BOOK    OF    KELLS. 

Dublin.) 


Illuminated  Manuscripts. 


In  a  comprehensive  history  of 
invention  of  printing,  the  chapter 
progress  of  that  art  in  these  Islands 
would  be  the  most  homogeneous 
and,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting 
of  all.  It  would  begin  with  the 
wonderful  Celtic  school  of  monastic 
art,  which  arose  in  the  fifth  century 
and  came  to  long  persisting  perfection 
some  two  centuries  later,  and  it  would 
end  with  the  first  quarter  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  when  the  series 
of  political  earthquakes  began  which 
were  to  destroy  for  centuries  so 
much  of  the  national  character  of 
British  Art.  Between  those  two 
extreme  dates  the  production  of 
Illuminated  Manuscripts  went  on 
in  a  line  of  more  or  less  steady  de- 

141 


book    production    before    the 
dealing    with    the    birth    and 


FIG.    265. — PAGE   FROM   LINDISFARNE 

GOSPELS.     (British  Museum.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  266. — PAGE  FROM  A 
CELTIC  GOSPELS. 

(Lambeth  Palace.) 


velopment,  and  during  a  great  part  of  the  time  our  scribes  and 
decorators  were  doing  better  work  than  any  of  their  rivals.  We  have 
seen  that  the  first  wave  of  Christianity 
which  reached  us  had  its  most  permanent 
effect  in  Ireland,  where  it  was  in  some 
degree  protected  from  the  raiding  tribes  of 
Northern  Europe,  so  that  after  a  time  it 
gathered  strength  enough  to  reevangelize 
the  nearer  coasts  of  Britain.  With  Chris- 
tianity it  introduced  its  art,  and  the  monas- 
teries founded  in  Scotland  and  England 
became  centres  for  the  distribution  of  those 
Celtic  conceptions  which  had  been  devel- 
oped in  peace  beyond  the  protecting  sea. 
The  Irish  Celts  "had  learned  to  produce 
goldsmiths'  work  and  manuscript  illumina- 
tions with  such  marvellous  taste  and  skill 
as  has  never  been  surpassed  by  any  age  or 
country  in  the  world  "  (Middleton).  The 
illuminators  based  their  designs  on  those  of  the  goldsmiths.  In 
many  cases,  indeed,  the  same  individual  both  decorated  a  manu- 
script and  bound  it  in  metal.  So  that  a 
page  from  such  a  work  as  the  Bool^  of 
Kells  is  really  a  translation  into  terms  of 
paint  of  notions  suggested  by  the  idiosyn- 
crasies of  metal,  enamel,  and  precious  stones. 
On  this  fact  both  its  virtues  and  its  short- 
comings depend,  its  miraculous  delicacy, 
intricacy,  and  yet  freedom  from  confusion, 
as  well  as  its  occasional  want  of  propriety. 
The  Book  of  Kells  was  probably  written 
between  680  and  700.  Its  extraordinary 
elaboration  defies  description  in  words — can 
only  be  appreciated,  indeed,  by  ordinary 
eyesight  with  the  help  of  a  microscope  and 
a  great  deal  of  patience.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  natural  forms  introduced  show  an 
absolute  incapacity  on  the  part  of  the  Celtic 
artist  to  represent  the  human  figure.  I 
have  already  explained  (pp.  5-7)  why  such 
incapacity  should  not  be  too  readily  assumed.  The  monastic  painter 
was  a  Celt,  with  an  eye  for  unity  and  the  value  of   line,    and   was 

142 


FIG.    267. — ROYAL   MS.    I    D.   X 
FOLIO   6. 

(British  Museum.) 


ILLUMINATED  MANUSCRIPTS 


FIG.    268.— INITIAL    FROM    A    LATE 
FOURTEENTH    CENTURY   MISSAL. 

(British  Museum.) 


not  easily  tempted  to  introduce  disturbing  elements  into  his  designs. 
He  did  not  wish  to  imitate  the  human  figure,  he  wished  merely  to 
use  it  so  far  as  it  submitted  to  his 
arbitrary  but  rightly  decorative  in- 
tentions. The  human  figure  is  so 
interesting  in  itself  that,  once  it  was 
made  use  of  in  art,  it  gradually  in- 
sisted on  taking  an  ever  more  and 
more  important  place,  but  with  men 
in  whom  Celtic  blood  predominates 
it  continues,  even  to  this  day,  essen- 
tially an  element  in  pattern. 

I  have  already  had  occasion  to 
allude  to  the  finest  examples  of  Celtic 
illumination.  They  are  the  Book  of 
Kells  (Fig.  264),  the  perhaps  earlier 
Book  of  Durrow  (Fi^.  19),  the  later 
Book  of  Armagh,  the  Book  of  the 
Gospels  of  St.  Cuthbert,  or  Lindis- 
farne  MS.  (Fig.  265),  the  Commen- 
tary ofCassiodorus  on  the  Psalms,  in 
Durham  Cathedral,  and  a  splendid  Gospels  in  the  Imperial  Library  of 
St.  Petersburg.  The  last  three  are  examples  of  the  English  school 
founded  on  the  teaching  of  the  Irish  monks.     They  are  more  gorgeous 

than  the  earlier  MSS.,  chiefly  through 
the  introduction  of  gold  and  silver  leaf, 
which  the  purely  Irish  illuminators  never 
used.  Illuminated  manuscripts  continued 
to  be  produced  in  Ireland  down  to  the 
tenth  century,  but  the  later  school  is  by 
no  means  equal  to  that  which  gave  us 
the  Book  of  Kells.  The  influence  of 
the  Irish  illuminators  was  chiefly  active 
in  Scotland  and  in  Northumbria,  but  it 
extended  not  only  to  Canterbury  and 
other  centres  in  Southern  England,  but 
to  many  places  on  the  continent  of 
Europe,  whither  it  was  carried  by  the 
ubiquitous  Irish  missionaries.  The  library 
of  St.  Gall  owns  a  number  of  finely 
illuminated  books  of  the  later  Irish  type.  Irish  influence  also 
penetrated   to   the  Scandinavian   peninsula,   where   typically   Celtic 

143 


FIG.  269. — PAGE  FROM  APOCA- 
LYPSE, ROYAL  MS.  19  B.  XV. 

(British  Museum.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


forms  are  to  be  identified  in  the  ornament  of  those  timber  churches 
of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  which  are  the  earliest  Christian 
monuments  in  the  country. 

A  change  in  the  character  of  Anglo-Celtic  illumination  naturally 
followed  the  closer  connection  with  Rome  brought  about  by  the 
Synod  of  Whitby  in  664  and  its  logical  consequences.  Italian  ideas 
modified  the  old  Celtic  conceptions,  and  the  combination  gave  birth 
to  a  style  which  characterized    English    illumination    during    those 

generations  which  saw  it  the 
leading  school  of  Europe.  This 
is  noticeable  in  a  gentle  but  pro- 
gressive infusion  of  classical  feel- 
ing into  the  treatment  of  figures 
and  their  draperies.  The  purely 
ornamental  parts  of  the  work 
retain  their  Celtic  air  for  a  long 
time,  and  by  the  time  it  has  dis- 
appeared the  classical  touch  has 
gone  too,  and  both  figures  and 
ornament  have  combined  to  form 
a  style  in  strict  unity  with  the 
Gothic  movement  as  a  whole. 
From  the  end  of  the  tenth 
century  to  the  early  years  of  the 
fifteenth,  excepting  a  short  eclipse 
after  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  English  school  of 
illumination  was  the  most  influen- 
tial in  Europe. 

It  was  with  the  help  of  a 
famous  English  scribe  and 
scholar,  Alcuin  of  York,  that  Charlemagne  created  what  has  been  called 
the  Anglo  Carolingian  school  of  manuscript  writing  and  decoration. 
Alcuin  controlled  the  production  of  a  large  number  of  manuscripts 
in  the  Benedictine  monasteries  of  France — at  Tours,  Soissons,  Metz, 
etc.  He  revised  the  Vulgate,  and  a  magnificently  written  and 
illuminated  copy  in  the  British  Museum  is  believed  to  be  the 
actual  copy  prepared  for  Charlemagne.  '*  The  figure  subjects  are 
mainly  classical,  with  fine  architectural  backgrounds  of  Roman 
style,  drawn  with  unusual  elaboration  and  accuracy,  and  even 
with  fairly  correct  perspective.  The  initial  letters  and  all  the 
conventional    ornaments    show    the    northern    artistic    strain    which 

144 


FIG.    270.- 


-PAGE   FROM   HARLEY   MS.    7026. 
FOLIO   4   B. 

(British  Museum.) 


ILLUMINATED  MANUSCRIPTS 


FIG.    271. — THE    POPE    AND    THE 
GOLDSMITH.  (SIR     DAVID 

WILKIE.) 


Alcuin  himself  introduced  from  York.  Delicate  and  complicated 
interfaced  patterns,  as  were  first  used  in  the  wonderful  manuscripts 
of  the  Celtic  monks,  are  freely  in- 
troduced into  the  borders  and  large  capi- 
tals "  (Middleton). 

As  Northumbria  had  given  Alcuin 
to  Charlemagne  to  help  in  the  creation 
of  a  French  school  of  illumination,  so, 
after  the  practical  destruction  of  North- 
umbrian civilization  in  the  ninth  century 
by  the  Danish  ruffians,  the  movement 
established  by  Alcuin  reacted  on  North- 
umbria and  re-kindled  the  quenched 
fires.  And  not  only  on  Northumbria. 
Alfred  the  Great  was  as  enthusiastic  as 
Charles  the  Great  in  the  cause  of  litera- 
ture and  art.  A  new  school  arose  in 
his  capital  of  Winchester  and  in  the 
great  Benedictine  monasteries  through- 
out the  country.  The  Carolingian  influence  is  to  be  traced  in  the 
earlier  results  of  the  new  movement.  The  famous  Chatsworth 
Benedidional,  written  by  Godeman,  chaplain  to  /Ethelwold,  Bishop 
of  Winchester,  is  an  instance  of  this.  In  its  thirty  full  page  minia- 
tures it  combines  features  of  the  Carolingian  and  more  exclusively 
English  schools.     Its  date  is  about  965. 

Another  centre  of  illumination  was  the  Benedictine  Abbey  of 
Glastonbury  under  St.  Dunstan,  himself  a  good  artist.  The  Bodleian 
possesses  a  drawing  of  Christ  with  a  prostrate  saint  at  His  feet, 
said  by  a  twelfth  century  annotator  to  be 
Dunstan,  by  himself. 

Side  by  side  with  the  Anglo-Carolingian 
School  of  Winchester,  a  completely  native 
school  of  Anglo-Saxon  illuminators  was  at 
work.  By  the  eleventh  century  this  had 
reached  great  excellence,  especially  in  the 
production  of  designs  depending  almost 
entirely  on  line  for  their  effect.  By  the 
twelfth  century  these  competing  schools 
had  led  to  a  great  development  in  the 
production  of  decorated  manuscripts.  All 
through  the  century  the  art  rapidly  pro- 
gressed until  it  culminated  in  the  splendid  English  illuminations  of 

145  L 


FIG.   272. — artist's   mother. 

(a.  geddes.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    273. — ST.    JACQUES,    LISIEUX, 
(C.   J.    WATSON.) 


the  thirteenth  century,  which  were  long 
without  rivals  in  any  European  country. 
A  close  analysis  of  the  best  work  of 
this  century  shows  that  Celtic,  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Norman  traditions  all  con- 
tributed to  its  final  excellence,  although 
the  influence  of  the  last  named  strain 
was  probably  the  strongest.  It  affected 
art,  indeed,  over  the  whole  of  the  An- 
gevin Empire,  down  to  the  Pyrenees. 

Down  to  a  quite  recent  date  it  was 
assumed  by  historians  of  art  that  the 
French,  the  Parisian,  school  of  illumi- 
nation was  not  only  preeminent  in 
Europe  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  and 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  centuries, 
but  was  also  the  nursery  of  excellence 
elsewhere.  This  opinion  was  contested  by  English  students,  and  it 
is  now  in  a  fair  way  to  be  acknowledged  that  to  England  belongs, 
almost  entirely,  the  credit  of  being  the  leader.  Without  England  the 
style  of  illumination  which  prevailed  in  the  French  Royal  Domaine, 
from  the  time  of  St.  Louis  onward,  would  be  unexplainable.  The 
breach  of  continuity  with  the  past  would  be  too  great.  It  was 
from  the  English  hearth  that  the  French  illuminators  took  the  fire 
which  they  blew  into  so  great  a  flame 
in  the  fourteenth  century. 

^P^'  (^^'Mii*'! ''"'  ^^^'  ^^^    through    the    fourteenth    century 

i         .i.rc    V         j£».,e.^       ^j^j  j^j.  jj^^  ^j.gj  t-^enty  or  thirty  years 

of  the  fifteenth,  the  illumination  of 
manuscripts  in  England  became  grad- 
ually more  national — more  different 
from  similar  work  on  the  continent — 
in  style.  It  also  fluctuated  greatly  in 
excellence.  The  years  of  the  Black 
Death  almost  stifled  the  art,  and  it  was 
not  until  nearly  the  close  of  the  four- 
teenth century  that  good  work  was  again 
produced  in  any  quantity.  Down  to 
the  commencement  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses,  however,  fine  work  was  still  done, 
and  many  splendid  manuscripts  date  from 
the  years  between  about  1 380  and  1 430. 

146 


FIG.    274. — ST.   MERY,    PARIS. 
(hedley  FITTON.) 


ETCHING 


Etching 

The  art  of  etching  has  had  a  curious 
career  in  this  country.  After  its  in- 
vention— as  a  pure  and  separate  art^ 
by  Rembrandt,  it  lay  unnoticed  for 
more  than  a  century  and  a  half  by 
English  artists,  and  then,  like  a  forgotten 
seed,  it  suddenly  germinated  in  the 
minds  of  two  Scottish  painters,  coming 
up  almost  as  sound  and  whole  as  Rem- 
brandt had  left  it.  David  Wilkie  and 
Andrew  Geddes  have  left  but  a  few 
plates  behind  them,  but  those  few  are 
enough  to  show  how  completely  alive 
they  were  to  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the 
medium.  Their  attempt — if  we  can  call  it  one — to  revive  a  dormant 
art  was  frustrated  by  one  of  nature's  little  ironies  in  the  foundation 
of  the  Etching  Club,  a  loose  confederacy  of  painters  who  had 
neither  the  qualities  nor  the  aims  of  the  true  artist  in  line. 
They  thought  in  anecdote,  and  other  men's  anecdotes  at  that  ! 
Their  plates,  speaking  broadly,  have  no  touch  of  the  right  character, 
and  are  now  practically  forgotten.  The  example  of  Wilkie  and 
Geddes  was  not  fruitless,  however.  Two  etchers  arose  soon  after 
the  middle  of  the  century  who  will  take  their  places  in  the  future 
among  the  great  masters.  One  of  these  was  James  McNeill 
Whistler  ;  the  other,  his  brother-in-law,  Francis  Seymour  Haden. 
During  most  of  his  career  Whistler  posed  as  anti-English,  although 
his  art  was  mainly  British,  in  spite  of  his  American  birth  and  French 
training.      It   was    essentially    an    art    of    emotional    selection.     He 


-miss  seymour  haden. 
(whistler.) 


thought  he  was  painting  with  his 
nated,  almost  as  much  as  those  of 
Meryon,  by  his  passion.  As  a 
painter.  Whistler  had  another 
British  trait  ;  he  was  an  island, 
an  individualist,  a  man  almost 
completely  disconnected  from  sur- 
rounding or  traditional  influences. 
As  an  etcher,  however,  he  was  the 
legitimate  offspring  of  the  best 
talkers  in  line  by  whom  he  was  pre- 
ceded.    His    brother  -  in  -  law,    Sir 

147 


brains,   but   these   were   domi- 


FIG.   276. — APRIL  IN   KENT.       (f.   SHORT.) 


L  2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    277. — THE   AGAMEMNON.      (SIR  F.   SEYMOUR   HADEN.) 


Francis  Seymour  Haden,  was  newer  and  more  detached  than 
he,  also  colder,  more  conscious,  more  scientific.  Whistler's  powers 
as  an  etcher  first  became  generally  known  in  1871,  when  a  series 
of  "  Sixteen  etchings  of  scenes  on  the  Thames  and  other  subjects  '* 
was  published.  From  that  time  to  his  death  he  was  accepted  as, 
perhaps,  the  most  consummate  master  of  the  art  since  Rembrandt, 
his  only  rivals  in  modern  times  being  the  two  men  already 
named,     Sir     Francis     Seymour     Haden     and     Charles     Me'ryon. 

Me'ryon's  art  may  almost  be  claimed  as 
English.  His  father  was  English, 
and  his  inspiration  came  from  a  n 
English  imagination,  determined  by  the 
face  of  Paris  and  heated  by  a  touch  of 
insanity. 

The  interest  excited  by  the  plates 
of  Whistler  and  Seymour  Haden  led 
first  to  a  feverish  hunt  after  other 
etchers,  by  which  the  fame  of  Me'ryon 
was  established,  and  secondly  to  the 
investigation  of  the  powers  of  the 
etching  point  by  many  of  our  younger 
artists.  During  the  last  twenty  years 
or  so,  the  class  of  painter-etchers — as 
we  now  call  etchers  who  etch  their  own 
ideas — has  greatly  increased,  or  rather 
has  been  created,  and  not  a  few  among  its  members  have  shown  powers 
which  will  give  them  a  permanent  place  among  the  masters  of  the  art. 

148 


FIG.    278. — MILL   IN   WIRRAL. 
(f.   BURRIDGE.) 


ENGRAVING 


FIG.  279. — WOODCUT,  FROM  THE 
"fall  of  PRINCIS." 


Reproductive  etching,   the  use  of  etching  for  purposes  formerly 
confined   to   engraving,   has   been   carried  farther  on   the  Continent 
than  here,  ahhough  these  islands  have  supphed  the  chief  market  for 
its  resuhs.     One  of  the  best  of  all 
reproducers  in  the  method,  however, 
is    an    Englishman,    W.    E.    Hole, 
R.S.A.,     who     is     responsible     for 
some   remarkable   plates    after 
Rembrandt  and  the  masters  of  the 
so-called    Romanticist   school    in 
France. 

Engraving 

Engraving,  in  the  purest  sense  of 
the  word,  the  use  of  the  burin  or 
graver  to  plough  or  punch  hollows 
in  the  copper,  has  never  enlisted 
a    large    class    of    votaries    in    this 

country.  It  demands  qualities  of  patience  and  exactness  with 
which  we,  as  a  nation,  are  not  so  richly  endowed  as  some  of  our 
rivals.  Engraving  is,  in  fact,  a  form  of  criticism.  Its  excellence 
depends  on  a  frame  of  mind  not  dissimilar  from  that  which  leads 
a  man  to  devote  his  life  to  the  examination — word  by  word, 
syllable  by  syllable,  letter  by  letter — of,  say,  Shakespeare.  The 
Englishman's  eye  loves  results,  but  does  not  always  delight  in 
means.  Short  cuts  and  royal  roads  appeal  to  him,  and  so  he  has 
distinguished  himself  as  a  wood  engraver, 
and  has,  in  recent  times,  invented  what  is 
known  as  the  mixed  method  of  repro- 
ducing pictures  in  black  and  white  :  a 
method  in  which  etching,  engraving,  and 
mezzotint  all  bear  their  parts.  The  bril- 
liant prints  obtained  by  these  means  are 
not  satisfactory  to  those  who  combine  a 
respect  for  unity  with  their  other  aesthetic 
proclivities.^ 

The  art  of  wood  engraving  may  almost 
be  claimed  as  an  English  invention  —  as 
practised  in  Italy  and  Germany  it  was  a 
delicate  mechanical  process,  at  the  service 


FIG.  280. — WOODCUT  INITIAL 
LETTER  TO  FOXE'S  "MAR- 
TYRS." 


^  A  few  very  great  line  engravers  have  been  British,  or  at  least  members  of  the  British  school. 
William  Faithorne  (1616-1691)  owkI  a  good  deal  of  the  beautiful  style  <rf  his  later  worb  to  the 

149 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


of  an  art,  the  art  of  drawing.  It  was  not  until  Thomas  Bewick 
(born  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne  in  1 753)  reversed  the  usual  method 
and  started  the  system  of  the  white  line,  that  the  woodcutter 
became  an  artist,  working  freely  from  drawings,  pictures,  or 
Nature     herself.      The     old     process     involved     great     mechanical 

labor  and  skill,  but 
no  art ;  the  new  one 
required  compara- 
tively little  labor  or 
skill,  but  could  only 
be  used  with  effect 
by  an  artist.  Holbein 
and  Diirer's  work  as 
artists  was  finished 
when  they  had  made 
their  designs.  The 
rest  was  a  strictly 
mechanical  process  of 
removing  from  their 
blocks  all  those  parts 
of  the  surface  which 
corresponded  to 
blank  paper  in  the 
design.  Bewick  be- 
gan with  a  block 
blacked  all  over — on 
that  he  drew  his 
subject  in  white  line, 
exactly  as  the  dry- 
point  engraver  draws 
upon  copper.  I  n 
doing  so  he  was 
obliged  to  interpret 
his  model,  just  as  any  other  user  of  a  process  incapable  of  direct 

example  of  Nanteuil,  under  whom  he  worked  for  a  time  in  1649.  His  son,  William  Faithorne, 
junior  ( 1 656— 1 70 1  ?),  would,  perhaps,  have  rivalled  his  father,  had  his  mode  of  life  been  steadier. 
Sir  Robert  Strange  (1721-1792)  was  a  Scot,  of  a  Fife  family  settled  in  Orkney;  "William 
Woollett  (1735-1785),  a  Kentish  man  by  birth,  was  of  Dutch  extraction.  Strange's  method  of 
engraving  shows  a  purity,  breadth,  and  vigor  which  has  never  been  excelled,  while  Woollett  treated 
landscape  with  extraordinary  taste,  flexibility,  and  refinement  of  sty'e.  Strange  was  too  fond  of 
the  seventeenth-century  Italians,  but  he  has  also  left  plates  after  Titian,  holbein,  and  Vandyck. 
WooUett's  best  work  was  done  after  Richard  Wilson.  William  Sharp  ( 1  749- 1 824)  was  but  little 
inferior  to  Woollett.  A  fine  and  complete  collection  of  his  works  is  in  the  Bntish  Museum.  John 
Keyse  Sherwin  (1751-1790)  has  left  some  excellent  plates,  one  of  the  best  being  the  Banquet  of 
the  Knights  of  St.  Patrick,  in  Dublin  Castle.  Throughout  the  nineteenth  century  the  pure  art  of 
line  engraving  was  slowly  dying,  and  may  be  said  to  have  now  become  extinct. 

150 


-PLATE    FROM   HARRINGTONS       ARIOSTO. 


MEZZOTINTS 


fig.  282. — duke  of  monmouth, 
(abm.  blooteling  after  sir 
peter  lely.) 


imitation  has  to  interpret.  The  consequence  was  that  a  print  from  a 
block  cut  by  him  contained  his  own  individuaHty,  showed  his  own 
grip  of  the  subject  and  his  own  ideas  of 
how  to  do  it  justice,  which  was  only 
possible  with  the  old  process  when 
designer  and  engraver  were  one  and 
the  same  person.  Ruskin  called  him  a 
reformer  *'  as  stout  as  Holbein,  or 
Botticelli,  or  Luther,  or  Savonarola." 
Incidentally,  Bewick's  method  was 
peculiarly  adapted  to  the  English 
genius,  in  that  it  was  not  entirely  ob- 
jective, or  destructive  of  individuality. 
Bewick's  chief  works  were  his  English 
Quadrupeds,  published  in  1790,  and 
his  two  series  of  English  Birds,  pub- 
lished in  1 797  and  1804  respectively. 
His  example  inspired  many  followers,  of 
whom  the  best,  perhaps,  were  Charlton 
Nesbitt  and  Luke  Clennell,  but  the  white  line  never  entirely  ousted 
its  rival.  One  cause  of  this,  perhaps  the  chief  cause,  was  that 
many  wood  engravers  had  begun  life  as 
engravers  on  copper,  and  followed  the 
second  occupation  without  giving  up 
the  first.  Such  men  were  Robert 
Branston,  John  Orrin  Smith,  William 
Harvey,  and  others  who  produced  great 
numbers  of  book  illustrations  in  the 
days  before  photography  had  bred  its 
large  family  of  mechanical  processes. 

Mezzotints 

If  those  methods  of  engraving  which 
depend  upon  line  made  but  a  weak 
appeal  to  the  English  genius,  it  was  not 
so  with  mezzotint,  in  which  the  quality 
of  paint  is  approached  more  closely 
than  in  any  other  method  of  artistic 
reproduction.  The  art  of  mezzotint 
was  invented  by  one  Ludwig  von  Siegen,  an  officer  of  mingled  Dutch 
and  German  blood  in  the  Service  of  the  Landgraf  of  Hesse- 
Cassel.     By  him  the  invention  was  communicated  to  Prince  Rupert, 

.151       . 


FIG.  283. — ELIZABETH  AND  EMMA 
CREWE.  (jOHN  DIXON  AFTER 
SIR   JOSHUA    REYNOLDS.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  284. — MRS.  ABINGTON  AS 
THE  COMIC  MUSE.  (jOHN 
WATSON  AFTER  SIR  JOSHUA 
REYNOLDS.) 


Who  was  the  first  to  use  it  with  vigor  and  breadth.  From  Prince 
Rupert,  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  who  was  at  one  time  credited  with  the 
invention,  may  haye  learned  the  process. 
Two  small  mezzotints  of  negroes'  heads  are 
ascribed  to  him.  The  first  man  to  grasp 
the  full  possibilities  of  the  method  was  a 
Dutchman,  Abraham  Blooteling  (1634- 
1 700  ?),  who  was  domiciled  in  London 
from  1 672  to  his  death  (Fig.  282).  Put- 
ting aside  the  works  of  Prince  Rupert,  of 
which  the  Great  Executioner  is  the  best,  the 
earliest  English  mezzotint,  so  far  as  we 
know,  is  a  portrait  of  Charles  II,  by 
William  Sherwin,  which  is  dated  1669. 
At  about  the  same  time  plates  were 
being  published  in  London  bearing  the 
names  of  Richard  Tompson  and  Alexander 
Browne,  but  whether  these  men  were 
engravers  or  only  publishers  seems  to  be 
uncertain.  Edward  Lutterell^  (or  Luttrell), 
an  Irishman  by  birth  (1630  ?-l  710  ?), 
Francis  Place  (1647-1728),  R.  Williams  (flourished  1680-1700), 
and  Isaac  Beckett  (1653-?)  all  helped  to  prepare  the  great  develop- 
ment of  the  eighteenth  century,  which 
may  be  said  finally  to  have  been  set 
afoot  by  John  Smith  (1652  ?-l  742). 
Smith  had  the  good  fortune  to  find  at 
once  a  generous  patron  and  an  artist 
well  fitted  for  reproduction  by  the 
scraper,  in  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  after 
whom  he  mezzotinted  no  fewer  than 
1 38  plates.  Kneller  was  not  faithful  to 
Smith,  however,  and  also  employed 
Jean  Simon  (1675-1755?),  a  French- 
man and  pupil  of  Smith's,  to  translate 
several  of  his  pictures  into  black  and 
white.  Simon  may  be  claimed  for  the 
English  School  of  Mezzotint,  as  it  was 
not  until  he  came  to  London  that  he 
abandoned  the  burin  for  the  scraper,   and  devoted  himself  to  the 

*  The  Irish  National  Gallery   possesses  a   pastel   portrait    by   Lutterell   executed  on   the  rocked 
surface  of  a  copper-plate  prepared  for  mezzotinting. 

152 


FIG.    285. — LADY   CHAMBERS. 

(j.  MACARDELL   AFTER   SIR   JOSHUA 

REYNOLDS.) 


MEZZOTINTS 


FIO.  286. — HOPE  NURSING  LOVE. 
(EDWARD  FISHER  AFTER  SIR 
JOSHUA    REYNOLDS.) 


*'  black   art."     William   Faithorne   the  younger,   already  mentioned 

as    a    line    engraver,     also     scraped     mezzotints.      George    White 

(flourished     1714-1731)     is     believed 

to    have    been    the    first    to    etch    his 

outline    on    the    copper    before    laying 

the    mezzotint    ground.      Two    of    the 

most    industrious    mezzotinters    in    the 

first    half    of    the    eighteenth    century 

were  the  John  Fabers,  father  and  son, 

who  came  here  from  The  Hague  when 

the  latter  was  three  years  old.     Young 

Faber  is  best  known  by  his  plates  after 

the   Kneller   portraits   of   the   members 

of  the  Kit-Cat  Club. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  mezzotint 
scraping  was  falling  into  neglect  in 
England.  The  practitioners  were 
dying  out,  and  those  who  survived 
were  doing  inferior  work.  Among 
the  latter,  however,  was  one  Thomas  Beard,  who,  without  ever 
becoming  a  distinguished  engraver  himself,  played  a  not  unim- 
portant part  in  the  history  of  mezzotint.  He  migrated  to  Dublin, 
where  he  scraped  the  first  Irish  plate,  and  helped  to  sow  the  seed 
of  what  was  to  be  a  great  movement  in  the  art.  John  Brooks,  the 
first  native  Irish  mezzotinter,  had  his  curiosity  excited.  He  came 
to  London,  learned  to  scrape,  re- 
turned to  Ireland,  and  practised 
the  art  there  for  a  time.  With 
him  travelled  to  Ireland  one 
Andrew  Miller,  a  pupil  of  Faber 
junior.  These  three  men,  Beard, 
Brooks,  and  Miller,  kept  mezzo- 
tint alive  during  the  dead  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  and,  by 
means  of  a  school  established  by 
Brooks,  prepared  the  great  de- 
velopment which  marked  its  second 
half. 

This  development  was  due  in  the 
beginning    entirely    to    Irish-bom    workers.     The    greatest    of    these 
was  James  MacArdell,  a  pupil  of  Brooks,  whose  best  plates  have 

133 


FIG.    287. THE   LADIKS    WALDEGRAVE. 

(valentine       GREEN       AFTER       SIR 
JOSHUA    REYNOLDS.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


seldom  been  rivalled  and  never  surpassed.  MacArdell's  life  was 
short.  He  died  at  thirty-seven,  having  produced  more  than  two 
hundred  plates.  On  a  series  of  thirty-seven  after  Reynolds  his 
fame  chiefly  rests,  but  many  of  his  plates  after  other  painters, 
from  Van  Dyck  to  Hudson,  are  as  fine  as  those  after  Sir 
Joshua. 

Contemporary  with  MacArdell  was  his  fellow  countryman, 
Richard  Houston,  who  might  have  become  an  even  greater  engraver 

had  he  kept  clear  of  that  stumbling 
block  to  so  many  Irishmen  of  genius, 
intemperance.  Houston  left  about 
160  plates  behind  him,  besides  a  great 
deal  of  insignificant  hack  work  to  which 
he  was  reduced  by  his  own  improv- 
idence. Richard  Purcell  and  Charles 
Spooner  repeated  Houston's  follies 
but  did  not  rival  his  ability.  Other 
Irishmen  were  Michael  Ford,  Michael 
Jackson,  Edward  Fisher,  John  Dixon, 
James  Watson,  and  Thomas  Frye. 
Thomas  Frye  was  more  of  an  original 
artist  than  most  engravers.  His  extant 
drawings  are  good,  and  his  best  known 
plates  are  life-size  heads,  portraits  done 
from  life  with  no  intermediary  but  his 
own  drawings.  The  last  of  the  Irish  mezzotinters  to  quit  this 
world  was  James  Watson,  who  died  in  1790,  leaving  a  daughter, 
Caroline,  who  won  a  great  reputation  for  herself  as  an  engraver  in 
stipple. 

The  art  founded  by  Ludwig  von  Siegen  in  1 642  rose  to  its  highest 
level  in  the  last  thirty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Isolated 
plates  had  touched  the  summit  of  excellence  long  before — for 
instance,  Blooteling's  Monmouth  (Fig.  282),  the  best  of  John  Smith's 
plates,  MacArdell's  Lad^  Chambers  (Fig.  285),  etc. — but  it  was  not 
until  the  English  engravers  had  been  fired  by  the  example  of  the  Irish 
pupils  of  James  Brooks  that  the  art  became  a  great  and  flourish- 
ing tree  showering  its  fruit  broadcast  over  an  admiring  country. 

The  earliest  master  of  this  great  period  was  John  Finlayson, 
whose  most  refined  plate,  Elizabeth,  Duchess  of  Argyll,  was  pub- 
lished in  1  770.  Immediately  after  Finlayson  came  William  Pether, 
famous  for  his  plates  after  Rembrandt  and  after  the  candle-lighted 
scenes  of  Wright  of  Derby  ;    John  Watts,  a  vigorous  scraper,  who 

134 


FIG.  288. — LADY  CAROLINE  PRICE. 
(JOHN  JONES  AFTER  SIR  JOSHUA 
REYNOLDS.) 


MEZZOTINTS 


FIG.  289. — SIR  HARBORD  HAR- 
BORD.  (j.  R.  SMITH  AFTER 
GAINSBOROUGH.) 


followed   the  pursuit  more  or   less   as   an   amateur  ;   Philip   Dawe, 
who,   like  Pether,   was  fond  of   reproducing  candle-light    pictures; 
Jonathan  Spilsbury;  Giuseppe  Marchi,  the 
pupil    of    Reynolds  ;      and    two    men    of 
higher     powers      than     any    of      these    in 
Valentine  Green  and  John  Jones. 

Green  was  born  in  1739,  came  to 
London  in  1765,  was  elected  A.R.A.  in 
1775,  and  died  in  1813.  The  chief  merit 
of  his  plates  lies  in  the  delicacy  both  of 
his  texture  and  of  his  interpretation  of  his 
originals.  Among  his  best  plates  are  the 
Ladies  Waldegrave  (Fig.  287),  Lady^Bett^ 
De/me, and  the  Countess  of  Ay^lesford ^her 
Reynolds,  and  Ozias  Humphry^,  after 
Romney.  John  Jones  was  born  about 
1 745  and  died  in  1 797.  He  was  among 
the  more  versatile  of  the  scrapers  of 
mezzotint,  his  plates  showing  very  great 
variety,  in  manner  as  well  as  in  merit. 
Among  the  best  are  Lad})  Caroline  Price  (Fig.  288),  and  Charles 
James  Fox,  after  Reynolds ;  and  Dulce  Domum,  after  W.  R.  Bigg. 
Earlom  (1743-1822)  was  a  man  of 
enterprise  as  well  as  of  extraordinary 
dexterity,  for  he  scraped  such  diffi- 
cult subjects  as  the  flower  pieces 
of  Van  Huysum  and  the  land- 
scapes of  Hobbema.  But  John 
Raphael  Smith  (1752-1812)  may, 
on  the  whole,  be  considered  the 
most  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
long  procession  of  the  mezzotinters. 
His  numerous  plates  yield  to  none 
in  brilliance  and  in  every  di- 
rection his  accomplishment  was 
complete.  His  earliest  plate,  a 
portrait  of  Pascal  Paoli,  is  dated  1769;  he  left  off  work  about 
1809.^ 

» Other  mezzotinters  of  this  period  of  fullest  achievement  were  Thomas  ^Yatson  (|7437  ?) 
William  Dickinson  (1746-1823).  Robert  Dunkarton  (1744-1811)  John  Murphy  (flounshed 
1780-1809).  Charles  Townley  (1746-1800?).  James  Walker  ( 1 748- 18 1 9)  William  Doughty 
(active  1775-1782).  Henry  Hudson  (active  1782-1793).  Thomas  Burke  (1749-1815),  Josiah 
Boydell  (1750-1817),  John  Dean  (d.  1793),  Thomas  Park  (b.  1760;  left  off  engravmg  m 
1 797).  Joseph  Grozer  ( 1 755  ?- 1 799  ?),  and  Charles  Howard  Hodges  ( 1 764- 1 837).      Those  mne- 


FIG.  290. — SALISBURY  FROM  THE 
MEADOWS.  (DAVID  LUCAS  AFTER 
CONSTABLE.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    2QI. MRS.   CARWARDINE    AND 

CHILD.        (j.     R.     SMITH     AFTER 
ROMNEY.) 


The    skill    of    the    engravers    persisted    far    into    the    nineteenth 
century,  but  opportunities  were  not  then  what  they  had  been.     The 

methods  of  English  painters  were  no 
longer  so  apt  for  reproduction  in  mezzo- 
tint as  in  the  days  of  Reynolds  and 
Romney,  and  costume,  under  the  con- 
tinually increasing  pressure  from  the 
bad  example  of  France,  became  steadily 
more  and  more  unpicturesque.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
art  practically  disappeared  before  the 
century  was  fifty  years  old,  and  that, 
when  it  did  revive,  its  attention  was 
still  mainly  given  to  the  great  painters 
of  the  Georgian  era.  During  the 
nineteenth  century  two  innovations  were 
made  in  the  practice  of  mezzotint. 
In  the  first  place  attempts  were  made 
to  scrape  steel,  instead  of  copper,  with 
great  loss  of  charm;  secondly,  the  process  of  "  steeling "  the 
copper — covering  it  electrically  with  a  deposit  of  steel — was 
invented,  and  is  now  generally  used,  although  a  plate  so  treated 
fails  to  give  the  softly  rich  impressions  yielded  by  the  naked  copper. 

The  purity  of  mezzotint  became 
more  and  more  adulterated  with 
etching,  until  in  the  work  of 
Samuel  Cousins  the  two  are  so 
combined  as  to  be  equal  contribu- 
tors to  the  final  result.  Such  a 
plate  as  the  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  of  Cousins  may  be  com- 
pared to  the  wash  drawings  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  linear  skele- 
ton answering  to  the  etched  work 
and  the  wash  to  the  scraped. 
The  nature  of  mezzotint  made  it  inevitable  that  it  should  be 
chiefly    used    for    the    reproduction    of    figure    pictures,    and    among 

teenth  century  scrapers  who  belonged  to  the  end  of  the  great  period  rather  than  to  the  modem 
revival  were  John  Young  (1755-1825)  ;  William  Say  (1768-1834),  the  first  man  to  experiment 
with  steel ;  George  Townley  Stubbs  (1756-1815).  William  ( 1  766- 1816)  and  James  ( 1  769- 1 859) 
Ward.  George  Dawe  (1781-1829),  George  Clint  (1790-1835).  S.  W.  Reynolds  (1773-1835). 
William  Whiston  Barney  (d.  1800),  Charles  Turner  (1773-1857).  Henry  Meyer  (1782-1847). 
Thomas  Lupton  (1791-1873).  John  Richardson  Jackson  (1819-1877).  John  Charles  (1795-1835) 
and  James  (1800-1838)  Bromley.  David  Lucas  (1802-1881),  and  Samuel  Cousins  (1801-1887). 

156 


FIG.   292. — RAGLAN  CASTLE.      (j.   M.   W 
TURNER.       LIBER    STUDIORUM.) 


MEZZOTINTS 


figure  pictures,  of  portraits,  and  among  portraits,  of  those  in 
which  modelhng  was  broad,  both  in  heads  and  draperies.  Ideal 
subjects  for  the  mezzotint  scraper  are  the  portraits  of  Lely,  Hogarth, 
Reynolds  (especially  those  in  which  the  draperies  are  the  work  of 
Peter  Toms),  Raeburn,  and  Romney  ;  many  of  Hoppner's  portraits 
and  a  few  of  Lawrence's  call  for  such  interpretation.  But  Gains- 
borough does  not  lend  himself  so  kindly  to  the  method  ;  his  chiar- 
oscuro has  less  play,  and  his  brush  less  breadth,  than  the  scraper 
invites.  The  delicious  color  and  unrivalled  lightness  of  execution 
which  set  him  on  a  pedestal  of  his 
own  are  not  to  be  fully  suggested  by 
any  form  of  black  and  white.  In  our 
own  day,  Mr.  Sargent's  portraits 
would  make  ideal  subjects  for  the 
scraper. 

Landscape  is  a  bad  subject  for 
the  scraper.  Earlom,  indeed,  showed 
great  ability  in  his  work  after  Hobbema, 
Turner  and  his  engravers  did  wonders 
with  their  mixed  methods  in  the  Liber 
Studiorum,  and  David  Lucas  set  one 
aspect  of  the  genius  of  Constable  before 
us  with  extraordinary  vigor.  But  even 
the  best  of  these  things  fail  to  give  us 
that  feeling  that  here  we  have  some- 
thing put  to  its  proper  use  with  consummate  taste  and  consummate 
skill,  which  is  inspired  by  the  best  mezzotints  after  Sir  Joshua 
and  Romney. 

The  revivalist  mezzotinters  have  followed,  in  the  main,  the  older 
and  purer  methods.  The  steeling  of  copper  plates  has  made  it 
feasible  to  print  large  editions  without  much  sign  of  wear,  so  that 
steel  plates  and  conspicuous  etching  have  been  practically  abandoned, 
and  the  best  modern  mezzotints  do  not  fall  so  very  far  below  those 
of  the  great  period  in  charm. 


FIG.     203. LADY   PEEL.      (SAMUEL 

COUSINS  AFTER  LAWRENCE.) 


BIBUOGRAPHY 

Gardner,  J.  Starkie,  Ironwork.  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  Handbook,  1893  and  1907. 
Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  Catalogue  of  an  Exhibition  of  Chased  and  Embossed  Steel  and  Iron- 
work. 1900.  Stuhlfauth,  G.,  Die  altchristliche  Elfenbein  Plastik.  1896.  Victoria  and  Albert 
MuEcum,  Handbook  (.Ivories);  ditto.  Reproductions  of  Carved  Ivories,  1890.  Imelmann,  Rudolf, 
Wanderer  und  Seefahrer  in  Rahmen  der  Altenglischer  Odoaker  Dichtung,  Berlin,  1 908. 

Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  Catalogue  of  European  Enamels,  London,  1897.  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum,  Catalogue  of  English  Enamels  (Schreiber  Collection),  London,  1885.  Gardner, 
J.  S.,  English  Enamels,  1894.  Hermann,  P.,  On  Glass  and  Enamel  Painting.  1897.  Brown, 
k.  M.,  The  Art  of  Enamelling  on  Metal,  1900. 

137 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

Day,  Lewis  F.,  Windows,  a  Book  about  Stained  and  Painted  Glass,  1897;  ditto,  Victoria 
and  Albert  Museum  Handbook-  Stained  Glass  Windows.  James,  M.  R.,  The  Windows  of 
King's  College,  Cambridge.  1899.     Burlington  Magazine  for  October,  1907. 

Alford,  Lady  Marian,  Needlework  as  Art, .      Caulfield,  S,  F.  A.,  and  Saward,  B.  C, 

Dictionary  of  Needlework,  London,  1881. 

Middleton,  J.  H.,  Illuminated  Manuscripts  in  Classical  and  Mediceval  Times,  1892.  Molinier, 
E.,  Les  Manuscrits  et  Les  Miniatures,  Paris,  1892.  Thompson,  Sir  E.  Maunde,  English  Illus- 
trated Manuscripts,  1895.  Warner,  G.  F.,  Illuminated  Manuscripts  in  the  British  Museum, 
1899.  Vitzthum,  Georg,  Graf,  Die  Pariser  Miniatur-Malerei  von  der  Zeit  der  hi.  Ludwig  bis 
zu  Philipp  von  Valois,  Leipzig,  1907.  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  Catalogue  of  Illuminated 
MSS.,  1908. 

Short,  Frank,  The  Making  of  Etchings,  1888.  Herkomer,  Sir  Hubert  von.  Etching  and 
Mezzotint  Engraving,  1892.  Wedmore,  F.,  Etching  in  England,  1895;  ditto,  Whistler's 
Etchings,  1899.  Whitman,  A.  C.,  The  Masters  of  Mezzotint,  1898.  Davenport,  Cyril  J., 
Mezzotints,  1904.  Woodberry,  G.  E.,  History  of  Wood  Engraving.  Chatto,  W.  A.,  A 
Treatise  on  Wood  Engraving,  London,  1839.  Hamerton,  P.  G.,  The  Graphic  Arts,  London, 
1882.  Gleeson-White,  J.  W.,  English  Illustration,  1897.  Wedmore,  F.,  Fine  Prints,  1897. 
Frankau,  Julia,  Eighteenth-Century  Colored  Prints,  1900.  Fagan,  L.  A.,  History  of  Engraving 
in  England,  1 893  ;  ditto.  Catalogue  of  Engraved  Work  of  W.  Woollett,  1 885  ;  ditto.  Catalogue 
of  Engraved  Work  of  W.  Faithorne,  1887.  Bryan,  Michael,  Dictionary  of  Painters  and  En- 
gravers, ed.  of  1898,  etc.  Dobson,  H.  A.,  Bewick  and  his  Pupils;  Cundall,  J.,  A  Brief  History 
of  Wood  Engraving,  1895. 


294. — ENGLISH   ivory:   FOURTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

(Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.) 


158 


FIG.   295. — PANEL  FROM  ST.   STEPHEN'S,   WESTMINSTER.      (British   MuSCUm.) 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PAINTING  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES  FROM  ITS  ORIGIN 
TO  THE  BIRTH  OF  HOGARTH 

The  remains  of  early  painting  in  the  British  Isles  are  few,  although 
by  no  means  so  few  as  current  talk  about  our  arts  would  suggest. 
Wherever  conditions  have  been  favorable,  relics  of  ancient  painting 
exist  to  show  that  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  arts  were  complete,  and 
the  cortege  of  trades  marching  under  the  banner  of  Apollo  without 
any  serious  gap.  Given  a  country  church,  dating  back  to  the  early 
days  of  Gothic  architecture,  disposing  of  no  dangerous  depth  of 
purse,  but  covered  with  ancient  whitewash  :  you  are  pretty  sure, 
on  carefully  lifting  the  whitewash,  to  come  upon  traces  of  pictured 
decorations  :  Crucifixions,  Last  Judgments,  figures  of  Saints  or 
Bishops.  These  islands  were  not  open  to  the"  multitudinous 
influences  by  which  the  southern  nations  of  the  Continent  were 
surrounded,  and  so  they  cannot  boast  of  so  much  variety  in  their 
remains  of  early  painting.  Anything  that  reached  them  from 
the  East  or  South  had  to  travel  so  far,  and  pass  through  so  many 
modifying  forces  on  the  way,  that  our  telics  are  more  homogeneous 
than  similar  things  elsewhere.  Among  examples  of  wall  painting 
of  which  any  vestiges  remain  are  such  decorations  as  those  of  the 
Galilee  at  Durham  and  the  nave  at  St.  Albans's.  Only  one  bay  of 
a   decoration   which    at  least   filled  three   bays,    is    now  extant   at 

159 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


Durham.  It  includes  feigned  hangings,  strongly  reminiscent  in 
style  of  the  illuminations  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  two  nobly 
conceived  figures  of  bishops.  The  crucifixion  is  the  chief  subject 
at  St.  Albans's. 

We  have  seen  that  the  decoration  of  English  MSS.  was  on  the 
whole  superior  to  what  was  being  done  in  foreign  countries  down 
to  the  early  years  of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  was  characterized 
by  boldness  in  conception,  by  vivacity,  and  taste  in  execution.  It 
was    carried    on    with    almost    unbroken    industry    from    the    early 

days  of  the  Celtic  monasteries  to 
the  beginning  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses,  so  that,  in  spite  of  all 
the  destruction  of  the  Reformation 
and  of  the  Puritan  wrath  which 
followed,  its  remains  are  still  rich 
and  numerous.  These  illuminations 
are  sufficient  in  themselves  to 
prove  that  painting  had  a  normal 
career  in  the  British  Isles  during 
the  middle  ages.  And  they  by  no 
means  stand  alone.  Apart  from 
the  ruder  wall  paintings  alluded 
to  above,  there  still  exists  a  cer- 
tain number  of  paintings  which  are 
at  once  distinct  from  contemporary 
work  on  the  continent  of  Europe 
and  of  very  high  merit  for  their 
time.  Three  of  the  chief  examples 
are  figured  here  (Figs.  295,  297, 
298).  The  portrait  of  Richard  II, 
in  Westminster  Abbey,  taking  its 
date,  scale,  and  excellence  into 
account,  is  the  most  important  thing 
of  its  kind  in  Europe  (Fig.  298). 
The  Wilton  portrait  of  the  same  king,  with  its  accompaniments,  is 
still  more  intimate  in  its  charm.  In  style  these  are  quite  distinct 
from  anything  then  being  produced  on  the  Continent,  while  they 
are  akin  to  other  English  work  of  the  time.  The  third  example 
(Fig.  293)  is  a  fragment  from  a  series  of  paintings  removed  from 
St.    Stephen's   Chapel,  Westminster, ^    to    the    British   Museum.      It 


FIG.  2g6. — RICHARD  II.      WEST- 
MINSTER.    (Painter  unknown.) 


'A  portrait  of  Eldward 
of  1834. 


kneeling,  also  existed  in  St.  Stephen's  Chai^el  previous  to  the  fire 

160 


EARLY   PAINTING 


FIG.    297. — RICHARD   II.   AND   SAINTS. 

(Wilton  House.) 


dates,  apparendy,  from  about  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  has  strongly  distinctive  features 
of  its  own  which  bring  it  into  closer 
relationship  with  English  Illumina- 
tion miniatures  than  with  anything 
in  Italy  or  France.  The  action  of  the 
figures  is  varied,  perhaps  too  highly 
varied,  and  dramatic.  The  model- 
ling is  fused,  the  rendering  of 
draperies  elaborate,  the  coloring 
both  brilliant  and  rich.  These 
latter  characteristics  are  to  be 
found  in  all  three  of  these  paint- 
ings, although  their  dates  are  prob- 
ably half  a  century  apart.  Exactly 
similar  qualities  are  to  be  found 
in  a  fourteenth  century  retable 
in  Norwich  Cathedral.  The  con- 
tinental work  which  comes  nearest 
is  that  of  certain  later  French- 
men, such  as  Jean  Malouel,  who  may  well  have  been  influenced 
by  English  painters,  just  as  French  and   Flemish    illuminators  were 

influenced  by  the  decorators  of 
English  manuscripts.  The  distinc- 
tive features,  speaking  broadly,  of 
English  Gothic  painting  are  energy 
of  movement  and  fine  color,  a  rare 
combination,  which  is  not  to  be  found 
in  Tuscan  Art  of  the  time  to  the  same 
degree. 

Little  substance  or  continuity,  how- 
ever, can  as  yet  be  given  to  the  his- 
tory of  painting  in  England  before 
the  advent  of  Holbein,  about  the 
middle  of  Henry  VIIFs  reign. 
Great  destruction  of  things  portable 
had  taken  place  during  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses,  and  the  fate  which 
threatened  the  religious  houses  for 
some  years  before  their  dissolution 
had  its  effect  in  discouraging  their 
161  M 


FIG.    298. — MARGARET   BEAUFORT. 

(Painter  unknown.) 
National  Portrait  Gallery. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


artistic  activity.  So  that  the  German  painter  arrived  in  the  nick  of 
time  to  supply  a  needed  stimulus.  The  earliest  English  works,  except 
the  Wilton  and  Westminster  portraits,  that  we  should  now  call  pic- 
tures date  from  the  years  of  his  activity  and  confess  his  influence 
very  clearly  indeed.  They  belong  to  two  classes  :  miniatures,  or 
"  limnings,"  as  they  were  called,  and  portraits  life-size  or  of  a  size 
approaching  that  of  life.     Our  immediate  business  is  with  the  latter. 

As  the  great  school  of  English  portrait  miniaturists  had  one, 
at  least,  of  its  roots  in  Holbein,  so  has  the  still  greater  school  of 
our  portrait  painters  in  large.     Before  the  days  of  the  Augsburger 

there  were  portrait  painters  in  the 
country.  Indeed,  it  seems  likely 
that  this  particular  branch  of 
art  flourished  exceptionally  in 
these  islands  from  very  early 
days.  National  propensities  do 
not  readily  change,  and  among 
the  few  important  pictures  which 
have  come  down  from  our 
Gothic  centuries  we  find  several 
portraits — (e.g.,  those  of  James 
III  of  Scotland  and  his  Queen, 
Margaret  of  Denmark,  ^^^  Sir 
Edward  Boncle,  on  the  panels 
at  Holyrood  now  ascribed  to 
Hugo  Van  der  Goes,  as  well  as 
the  Richard  II  in  Westminster 
Abbey  (Fig.  296) — on  a  scale 
hardly  known  elsewhere  at  the 
same  period.  All  previous 
fashions  in  portraiture  dissolved,  however,  before  the  sun  of  Holbein. 
In  those  days  the  facilities  for  advertisement  were  slight  enough.  A 
portrait  would  be  painted  and  sent  home,  and  only  the  sitter's  friends 
would  have  much  chance  of  enjoying  it.  But  the  work  of  the  Augs- 
burger had  the  merit  of  appealing  to  all  kinds  of  people,  to  those 
who  saw  nothing  in  a  picture  beyond  a  more  or  less  successful  attempt 
to  imitate  some  object  outside  it,  as  well  as  to  those  who  understood 
art.  Such  a  panel  as  the  Duchess  of  Milan,  in  the  National  Gallery, 
would  delight  the  ignorant  by  its  truth  of  imitation  as  much  as  it 
would  the  man  of  knowledge  and  taste  by  its  combination  of  objective 
veracity  with  the  sincere  expression  of  emotion. 

Holbein's    example    dominated    English    painting    for    nearly    a 

162 


HG.    299. — PORTRAIT   OF    EDMUND    BUTTS. 

(JOHN  BETTES.)     National  Gallery. 


EARLY  PAINTING 


FIG.    300. — ENGLISH   PORTRAIT,    BY 
SOME    FOLLOWER    OF   HOLBEIN. 


century,  until  the  apparition  of 
Samuel  Cooper  and  Van  Dyck. 
A  very  large  number  of  pictures 
exist  which  would  never  have  put 
on  the  form  in  which  we  see  them 
had  he  never  come  to  England. 
But  few,  if  any,  men  can  be  traced 
to  his  studio,  and  yet  fewer  pictures 
assigned  to  any  particular  disciple. 
His  own  work,  of  course,  does  not 
belong  to  the  aesthetic  stem  it  is 
our  present  business  to  trace,  but 
its  effect  was  so  great  that  a  short 
sketch  of  his  career  must  be  given. 
He  was  born  at  Augsburg  in  1497 
and  died  in  London  in  1543,  having 
spent  the  years  1526  to  1528  and 
1 532  to  1 543  in  the  English  capital. 
Here  he  painted  a  large  number  of  portraits,  most  of  his  sitters 
being  drawn  either  from  the  entourage  of  the  Court,  or  from  the 
German  colony.  He  is  supposed  to  have  painted  all  the  wives 
of  Henry  VIII,  as  well  as  the  King 
himself.  He  went  abroad  more  than 
once  to  paint  ladies  on  whom  the 
King  thought  of  bestowing  the  danger- 
ous prize  of  his  hand.  On  the  7th  of 
October,  1543,  he  made  his  will,  to 
which  an  administrator  was  appointed 
on  the  29th  of  the  following  month; 
so  his  death  occurred  between  those 
two  dates. 

The  life-work  of  Holbein  is,  per- 
haps, more  homogeneous  and  more 
level  in  excellence  than  that  of  any 
other  painter.  His  pictures  vary 
greatly  in  importance,  but  scarcely  at 
all  in  the  success  with  which  they 
carry  out  their  aim.  He  is  never 
careless,  empty,  or  perfunctory.  His 
miniatures  of  the  two  small  sons  of 
Charles  Brandon,  Duke  of  Suffolk,  are  as  complete  in  their  way 
as  the  Darmstadt  Madonna,  or   The  Ambassadors,  or   the   Georg 

163  M  2 


FIG.    301. — UNIDENTIFIED    PORTRAIT. 

(Ashmolean  Museum,  Oxford.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    302. — PORTRAIT   OF   WILLIAM 
STOCKE    (?). 

(Worcester  College,  Oxford.) 


Ghisze,     The  art  of  Holbein  united  Teutonic  to  Latin  character- 
istics.    No  portrait  painter  has  been  more  objective,   and  yet  few 

have  had  a  finer  sense  of  design  or 
of  color  pattern.  Indeed,  in  one 
respect  he  is  unequalled  as  a  color- 
ist.  No  man  has  succeeded  so  com- 
pletely as  he  in  uniting  frankness  of 
individual  tint  to  harmony  in  the 
final  result.  His  genius  is  like  the 
daylight  coming  through  a  stained- 
glass  w^indow  :  it  reconciles  tints 
apparently  the  most  irreconcilable. 
I  may  be  allow^ed  to  name  what 
seem  to  me  his  masterpieces  :  — 
The  Meyer  Madonna  (Darm- 
stadt), The  Ambassadors,  and 
Christina,  Duchess  of  Milan, 
(London),  Georg  Ghisze,  Berlin,  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Windsor, 
Portrait  of  a  Young  Man,  Vienna,  Thomas  Morrett,  Dresden,' 
Sir  Bryan  Tuke,  Munich,  and  Sir  Thomas  More  in  the  collection 
of  Mr.  Edward  Huth.     It  is  probable  that  the  best  of  all  his  works 

was  the  group  of  the  two  Henrys, 
VII  and  Vlll,  with  their  wives, 
which  was  destroyed  with  White- 
hall. A  partial  cartoon  survives 
to  give  a  hint  of  what  has  been 
lost  :  it  belongs  to  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire. 

Woltmann  says  that  **  in  Eng- 
land Holbein  seems  to  have  stood 
quite  alone,  and  to  have  worked 
in  general  without  pupils  or  assist- 
ants :  his  artistic  style  here  found 
no  imitators."  This  too  sweeping 
statement  seems  to  be  founded  on 
nothing  more  than  the  fact  that  no 
immediate  pupil  of  the  master  made 
a  European  name.  England  swarms 
with   pictures   painted   in   a   style   founded   on   his,    most  of   them, 

1  Doubts  have  been  thrown  on  the  tradition  which  identifies  this  portrait  as  that  of  Morett, 
Henry  VIII's  jeweller.  But  the  attempts  to  identify  him  with  a  French  Morette  or  an  Italian 
Moretta  appear  to  me  to  rest  on  evidence  weaker  than  that  of  his  face,  which  claims  him  for 
England. 

164 


FIG.    303. — PORTRAIT  OF   A   NAVIGATOR. 

(Oxford  University  Gallery.) 


EARLY  PAINTING 


indeed,  of  slight  merit,  but  a  few  showing  that  some  men  of  real 
gifts  were  numbered  among  the  great  man's  scholars  or  disciples. 
To  only  two  of  these,  among  those  who  painted  in  large,  can 
particular  pictures  at  present  be  assigned  with  any  approach  to  confi- 
dence. A  male  portrait  in  the  National  Gallery,  by  John  Bettes, 
who  painted  with  his  brother  Thomas  in  the  reigns  of  Edward 
VI,  Mary,  and  Elizabeth,  is  excellent  (Fig.  299).  It  has  been 
asserted  that  Gwillim  Strete,  or  Stretes,  was  a  Fleming,  mainly  on 
the  strength  of  his  name.  It  is  probable  that  he  was  the  direct 
pupil  of  Holbein,  and  that  we  have  examples  of  his  work  in  the 
full  lengths  of  the  Earl  of  Surrey  (at  Hampton  Court  and 
at  Arundel  Castle),  in  that  of 
Edward  VI,  which  was  at  the 
Old  Masters  in  1902;  and  in 
the  copy  of  Holbein's  Jane  Sey- 
mour, which  hangs  in  The  Hague 
Museum.  It  is  possible,  however, 
that  none  of  these  are  by  Strete, 
and  that  his  real  hand  is  to  be  rec- 
ognized in  a  portrait  signed  with 
the  monogram  G.  S.,  in  the  col- 
lection of  Lord  Yarborough.  Many 
other  English  artists  flourished,  or 
at  least  existed  and  painted,  during 
these  reigns.  Their  names  and 
many  of  their  works  have  survived, 
but  evidence  to  connect  the  one  with 
the  other  is  very  scanty.  Pictures 
are  known  by  Sir  Robert  Peake 
(1590?- 1 667),  by  Richard  Lyne  (F.  1572),  by  Richard  Stevens 
(F.  1590)  (who  was  by  extraction  Dutch),  and  a  few  others,  but 
the  names  only  of  John  Bossam,  of  Edward  Courtenay,  Earl  of 
Devon,  of  Peter  Cole,  of  John  Shute,  of  Nicholas  Lockie  or 
Lockey,  and  many  more,  have  survived.  It  is  curious  that  only 
by  rare  exception  do  English  pictures  earlier  than  the  nineteenth 
century  bear  their  authors*  signatures.  If  each  painter  had  signed 
but  a  single  picture,  we  should  have  had  something  to  go  upon 
in  sorting  out  their  works,  and  the  historian's  task  would  have  been 
enormously  simplified.  An  able  painter  who  flourished  in  the  last 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  George  Gower,  who  was  made 
Sergeant  Painter  to  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1584.  A  signed  and 
dated  portrait  of  himself,  enriched  with  biographical  facts,  belongs 

165 


FIG.    304. — UNIDENTIFIED   PORTRAIT. 

(Ashmolean  Museum,  Oxford.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


to  Mr.  George  Fitzwilliam,  at  Milton,  Northants.  His  hand  is 
also  to  be  recognized  in  a  double  portrait,  back  and  front  of  panel, 
in  the  collection  of  Lord  Strathmore.  It  represents  the  ninth  Baron 
Glamis  and  his  secretary,  George  Boswell,  both  as  boys.  These 
portraits  show  that  Gower  was  a  very  good  artist  indeed. 

Another  painter  of  considerable  ability  who  belonged  to  the  last 
years  of  Elizabeth,  and  to  the  reigns  of  James  I  and  Charles  I, 
was  Sir  Nathaniel  Bacon,  K.B.,  of  Culford,  Suffolk.  He  was  the 
son  of  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  the  first  of  the  baronets,  and  was  con- 
sequently the  nephew  of  the  great  Sir  Francis.  He  was  born  in  or 
about  1583  and  died  in  1627.     At  least  three  excellent  pictures  by 

him  are  known  :  his  own  portrait 
and  a  kitchen  piece,  called  The 
Cook  Maid,  in  the  possession  of 
Lord  Verulam,  at  Gorhambury, 
and  another  portrait  of  himself  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  Nicholas 
Bacon,  of  Raveningham  Hall,  Nor- 
wich.^ Still  better  are  the  series 
of  Tradescant  portraits,  in  the 
Ashmolean  Museum  at  Oxford.  It 
appears  probable  that  most  of  these 
are  the  work  of  one  de  Critz,  or 
de  Crats,  of  a  family  which  held 
official  positions  at  the  courts  of 
Elizabeth,  James  I,  and  Charles  I. 
Meres,  in  the  Wits  Common- 
Wealth,  published  in  London  in 
1 398,  speaks  of  "  John  de  Cretz  " 
as  very  famous  for  his  painting.  This  same  John  was  employed  on 
the  tomb  of  Elizabeth,  in  Westminster  Abbey.  He  had  a  brother, 
Thomas,  as  good  or  better  than  himself  ;  an  Oliver  and  an  Emanuel 
are  also  known  :  a  fine  portrait  of  the  former  is  in  the  Ash-, 
molean  Museum.  Both  John  and  Emanuel  seem  to  have  been 
Sergeant  Painters  to  Charles  I.  At  the  dispersal  of  the  King's 
pictures  they  were  buyers,  says  Walpole,  to  the  amount  of  £4,999. 
If  one  of  them  was  really  the  author  of  the  Tradescant  pictures,  he 
was  the  best  native  painter  in  large  of  his  time,  as  Robert  Walker, 
Cromwell's  favorite  painter,  asserted  him  to  be.  A  de  Critz 
is  credited  with  the  painting  of  the  ceiling  in  the  "  Double  Cube," 
at   Wilton.     He    is    also    mentioned    by    Pepys    as    the    painter   of 

^See  article  by  Prince  Frederick  Duleep  Singh,  Burlington  Magazine  for  July,  1907. 

166 


FIG.    305. — PORTRAIT  OF  JOHN   BULL. 

(The  Schools,  Oxford.) 


EARLY  PAINTING 


a  portrait  of  the  first  Lord  Sand- 
wich, which  cost  £3  10s.,  in- 
cluding the  frame.  De  Critz  is 
hardly  an  Enghsh  name,  but  the 
absence  of  any  mention  of  it  in 
French  or  Flemish  archives  sug- 
gests that  the  family  in  question 
was,  at  least,  English  born. 

The  only  other  painter  of  any 
great  merit,  who  flourished  be- 
fore the  days  of  Van  Dyck  and 
can  be  claimed  as  in  any  degree 
English,  was  Cornelius  Jonson, 
or  Janssen  van  Ceulen.  He  was 
born  in  London  in  1593,  and  is 
believed  to  have  died  in  Holland 
in  1664.  Had  he  been  a  better 
colorist,  he  would  have  taken  a 
very  high  place  indeed  among 
the  painters  of  his  time.  His 
charm,  in  spite  of  his  cold  and 


G.    306. — EARL   OF   PORTLAND. 
(C.   JONSON.) 

National  Portrait  Gallery. 


portraits   often   have    a   wonderful 
timid  ways  with  color.     The  best 

(onsons  I  know  of  in  this  country  are  a  head  of  the  Earl  of  Port- 
and,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  a  head  in  the  same  manner 
in  the  Irish  National  Gallery,  and  a  lady's  portrait  in  Mrs.  Joseph's 
collection.  The  two  male  portraits  show  a  strong  affinity  with  the  style 
of  Dobson,  a  likeness  which  disap- 
pears in  Jonson's  later  work.  It  has 
often  been  said  that  Jonson  was 
driven  from  England  by  the  com- 
petition of  Van  Dyck,  but  he  was 
here  for  at  least  seven  years  after 
Van  Dyck's  death.  The  Rijks- 
museum,  Amsterdam,  has  a  picture 
signed  Corns.  Jonson  Londini  fecit, 
1648,  and  in  that  same  year  he  re- 
ceived the  Speaker's  warrant  to 
enable  him  to  leave  England  and 
take  his  chattels  with  him. 

Van  Dyck  (1599-1641)  came 
to  England  for  the  first  time  in 
1621,  but  only  on  a  flying  visit. 
About    1630    he   came    again    and 

167 


FIG.    307. — PORTRAIT   OF   A   LADY. 

(c.  JONSON.)     Mrs.  Joseph. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    308. — ENDYMION    PORTER. 

(dobson.)     National  Portrait  Gallery. 


then,  in   1632,  he  setded  here,  on  the  invitation  of  Charles  I.     He 
was  lodged  in  Blackfriars,  where,  for  nine  years,  he  lived  richly, 

worked  hard,  and  directed  a 
large  staff  of  scholars  and  as- 
sistants. Being,  perhaps,  the 
most  impressionable  of  all  great 
painters,  he  rapidly  threw  off 
the  manner  he  had  contracted 
under  the  influence  of  the  great 
Venetians,  and  adopted  one  sug- 
gested, possibly,  by  the  work  of 
Samuel  Cooper.  His  best  Eng- 
lish pictures  are  worthy  to  hang 
beside  the  finest  of  his  Genoese 
period,  but  many  things  he  did 
in  this  country  are  perfunctory, 
and  inferior  to  studio  repetitions 
of  his  good  things  by  his  better 
pupils.  The  truth  of  that  state- 
ment became  quite  evident  when 
129  pictures  ascribed  to  him 
were  brought  together  at  Bur- 
lington House  in  1900.  The  best  and  the  worst  things  in  that 
collection  betrayed  his  own  hand.  All  three  of  his  manners 
are  now  finely  illustrated  in  the  National  Gallery  :  the  early 
Flemish  period  by  the  half  length  of  Cornelis  Van  der  Gheest  ; 
the  Genoese,  by  the  portraits  of  the  Marchese  and  Marchesa  (?) 
Cataneo,  lately  acquired  ;  and  the  English  by  the  superb  equestrian 
portrait  of  Charles  I  from  Blenheim  Palace. 

So  far  as  a  national  school  of  painting  can  be  rooted  in  a  single 
man,  and  him  a  foreigner,  the  modern  English  school  is  rooted  in 
Van  Dyck.  Holbein  had  a  great  effect  in  his  day,  but  artist  as  he 
was,  he  had  too  much  Teutonic  objectivity  and  curiosity  in  his  com- 
position to  become  the  permanent  head  and  creator  of  anything 
British.  A  great  contrast  was  presented  by  Van  Dyck.  Affected 
at  once  by  the  genius  loci,  if  not  by  the  work  of  the  native  artists, 
the  Fleming  built  up  a  style  in  complete  accord  with  English 
predilections,  a  style  which  could  readily  impose  ilself  on  the  majority 
of  those  painters  of  mixed  Celtic  and  Teutonic  blood  by  whom  he 
was  to  be  followed. 

Most  of  Van  Dyck's  own  immediate  scholars  were  of  foreign 
birth.     The  best,  probably    was  Jean  de  Reyn,  who  came  so  near 

168 


EARLY  PAINTING 


his  master  that  his  works  are  mostly  catalogued  as  Van  Dyck's  ; 
except  in  Dunkirk,  where  he  passed  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life 
and  left  many  pictures  in  the  churches.  Another  clever  pupil 
was  David  Beek,  a  Dutchman,  whose  facility  has  been  celebrated 
by  a  saying  of  Charles  I's,  chronicled  by  Descamps:  '' Parhleu, 
Beek,  je  crois  que  Vous  peindriez  a  cheval  et  en  courant  la  poste!" 

Besides  his  pupils.  Van  Dyck  employed  in  his  studio  several 
painters  who  had  learnt  elsewhere:  Adriaan  Hanneman,  a  pupil  of 
A.  Van  Ravesteyn  and  Daniel  Mijtens,  senr.,  Peter  Lely,  who 
was  under  his  influence  for  some  months  before  his  death,  and 
two  Englishmen,  William  Dobson  and  Henry  Stone  (known  as 
"  Old  Stone  "). 

Dobson  was  a  pupil  of  Sir  Robert  Peake,  but  seems  also  to  have 
been  strongly  affected  by  the  example  of  Cornelius  Jonson.  He 
was  set  upon  his  feet  by  Van  Dyck,  who  had  discovered  him  in 
a  state  bordering  on  destitution.  He  acted  for  a  time  as  the 
Fleming's  assistant,  although  his  style  was  quite  distinct  from  Van 
Dyck's  when  independently  exercised.  On  the  death  of  his  patron 
he  was  appointed  Sergeant  Painter 
to  the  King,  but  died  poor  five  years 
later.  His  best  works,  such  as  the 
portrait  of  Endymion  Porter  (Fig. 
308),  in  the  National  Portrait  Gal- 
lery, touch  a  very  high  level. 
Dobson's  pictures  are  fairly  numer- 
ous, but  a  great  deal  of  disen- 
tangling of  the  true  from  the  false 
yet  remains  to  be  done. 

Henry  Stone  was  a  son  of 
Nicholas  Stone,  a  good  sculptor,  and 
master  mason  to  James  I.  He  copied 
many  pictures  of  Van  Dyck  and 
others,  and  was  a  painstaking,  dull 
artist.  He  died  in  London  in  1653. 
Edward  Bower  is  remembered  by 
one  remarkable  picture,  a  portrait 
of  Charles  I  as  he  appeared  at  his  trial,  belonging  to  the  Duke  of 
Rutland.  A  good  portrait  in  the  Schools,  at  Oxford,  represents 
Nicholas  Lanier,  who  seems  to  have  followed  Van  Dyck. 

A  painter  whose  ability  earns  him  a  place  between  Dobson  and 
"  Old  Stone  "  was  George  Jamesone,  or  Jamisone,  called,  absurdly 
enough,  the  Scottish  Van  Dyck.     He  was  born  in  Aberdeen  late  in 

169 


FIG,   309. LADY  BELLASYS.       (siR  PETER 

LELY.)     Hampton  Court. 


^        OF  THE 

^NiVERsiTV 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


the  sixteenth  century.  He  was  apprenticed  in  Edinburgh  in  1612, 
and  it  has  been  asserted  that  he  also  studied  under  Rubens,  in  Ant- 
werp. Of  that,  however,  there  are  no  signs  in  his  work.  Tradition 
says  that  the  family  of  Rubens's  second  wife,  Helena  Fourment,  was 
an  offshoot  from  a  well-known  Aberdeen  stock,  the  Formans.  The 
possibility  suggests  itself  that  the  master's  friendship  with  the  Fourments 
and  Jamesone's  sojourn  at  Antwerp — otherwise  improbable  enough 
— may  have  had  some  connection  with  each  other.  Jamesone's  works 
are  fairly  numerous  in  Scotland.     They  are  distinguished  by  careful 

execution  in  a  thin,  luminous 
impasto,  but  are  monotonous  in 
color  and  lack  vigor.  Jame- 
sone  died  in  1646,  and  was 
buried  in  the  famous  church- 
yard of  the  Grey  Friars  in 
Edinburgh. 

From  the  end  of  the  first 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century 
onward,  painters  of  native 
origin  begin  to  increase  rapidly 
in  numbers.  We  are  still  far 
from  anyone  who  rose  to  the 
level  of  the  following  century, 
but  after  the  example  of  Van 
Dyck  had  had  time  to  produce 
its  effect,  art  began  to  attract 
men  of  some  gifts  to  its  pursuit. 
During  the  Commonwealth  it 

FIG.    310. — MISS   JANE   KELLEWAY.  i  •    1       J  •     1       1  1 

(sir  peter  lely.)    Hampton  Court.  languished,  as  might  have  been 

expected,  but  Lely  found  pa- 
tronage ;  asdid  Robert  Walker  and  Samuel  Cooper,  who  each  painted 
Cromwell  more  than  once.  But  the  line  of  British  painters,  which 
has  continued  to  the  present  day,  began  with  certain  scholars  of  Lely. 
Sir  Peter  Lely  was  born  at  Soest,'  near  Utrecht,  in  1618.  His 
father,  a  military  captain  named  Van  der  Faes,  had  changed  the 
family  name.  The  son  studied  in  Haarlem  under  Pieter  de 
Grebber,  but  came  to  England  in  1641,  shortly  before  the  death  of 
Van  Dyck.  Here,  like  Van  Dyck  himself,  he  rapidly  built  up 
a  style  which  suited  his  new  milieu,  and  was  rewarded  by  a  vogue 
which   lasted    till   his   death    in    1680.     He   became   an   agreeable 

^  Lely  has  often  been  catalogued  with  the  German  School,  in  spite  of  his  utterly  non-German  art,  in 
the  belief  that  the  Soest  of  his  birth  was  the  Westphalianltown  of  that  name. 

170 


EARLY  PAINTING 


colorist,  he  cultivated  elegance  in  design  and  breadth  in  execution, 
and  he  took  manners  as  he  found  them.  His  best  work  is  as 
good  as  work  without  intensity  can  ever  hope  to  be.  He  began  by 
painting  in  brown  tones,  with  little  positive  color,  which  latter 
he  allowed  to  creep  into  his  conceptions  rather  gradually.  Internal 
evidence  proves  that  he  made  great  use  of  assistants.  The  pictures 
ascribed  to  him  are  very  numerous,  and  have  not  yet  been 
completely  studied.  But  so  far  as  my  own  experience  goes,  I 
should  say  that  Lely's  own  work  is  characterized  by  generally 
excellent,  sometimes  masterly, 
design,  by  a  strong  tendency  to 
brown,  which  became  gradually 
less  marked,  however,  as  time 
went  on,  and  by  more  careful  mod- 
elling than  that  of  his  scholars. 
The  pictures  on  which  we  find 
his  monogram  all  have  this  char- 
acter. One  of  the  best  is  a  large 
family  piece  of  Charles  Dormer, 
Earl  of  Carnarvon,  with  his  wife 
and  two  children,  in  the  possession 
of  Sir  Algernon  Coote,  of  Ballyfin, 
Queen's  County.  This  Earl  of 
Carnarvon  was  the  third  of  the 
creation,  and  son  of  the  Robert 
Earl,  who  fell  at  the  first  battle  of 
Newbury.  A  fine  group  of  three 
male  sitters  is  at  Christ  Church, 
Oxford.  Of  the  many  pictures  ascribed  to  Lely  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery,  the  following  seem  to  me  to  be  his:  Duke  of 
A  Ihemarle,  Duke  of  Buckingham,  Charles  II,  Mary  Davis,  Nell 
Gwyn,  Countess  of  Shrewsbury,  Wycherley,  Duchess  of  York,  and 
himself  The  Windsor  Beauties  at  Hampton  Court  show,  per- 
haps, a  closer  study  of  Van  Dyck  than  anything  else  he  did.  The 
Lady  Bellasys,  with  its  floating  cherubs,  reminds  one  of  the  Fleming's 
excursions  into  mythology  :  but  in  design  it  is  finer  than  most  Van 
Dycks.  Had  it  been  carried  out  with  the  older  man's  patience,  it 
would  have  been  a  masterpiece  of  courtly  portraiture.  But  Lely  had 
little  patience.  Toward  the  end  of  his  career  his  draperies,  especially, 
become  mere  scaffoldings  for  drapery,  all  deep  shadow  and  high 
light.  And  his  dealings  with  character  are  on  a  far  lower  plane  than 
those  of  Van  Dyck.      But  he   could,  when   he  chose,   rise  to  an 

171 


FIG.    311. — COMTESSE   DE   GRAMMONT. 

(sir  p.  lely.)     Hampton  Court. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    312. MRS.    JANE   MIDDLETON. 

(?    JOHN    GREENHILL.) 

National  Portrait  Gallery. 


occasion.  Walpole  mentions  a  good  many  Lelys  which  are  now 
difficult  to  trace,  especially  as  his  name  has  been  attached  to  innu- 
merable works  he  never  touched 
or  even  saw.  His  drawings  and 
pastels  are  good,  though  slight. 
He  shares  with  Rembrandt, 
Lawrence,  Bonnat,  and  a  few 
other  busy  artists,  the  honor  de- 
served by  the  fine  connoisseur. 
After  his  death  his  collections 
brought  the  enormous  amount, 
for  the  time,  of  some  £26,000. 

The  best  pupils  of  Lely  were 
John  Greenhill  and  Mary  Beale. 
John  Greenhill  was  born  at 
Salisbury  in  1649  and  died  in 
1676,  so  that  he  had  not  much 
time  in  which  to  make  a  name. 
His  life  was  shortened  by  dis- 
sipation. Two  or  three  of  his 
pictures  are  at  Dulwich  College, 
one  signed  with  his  initials,  J.  G. 
They  are  distinguished  by  refinement  of  drawing  and  by  an  agree- 
able silver  tonality,  which  help  us  to  recognize  his  share  in  works 
ascribed  to  his  master.  The  portrait  of  Mrs.  Jane  Middleton  (Fig. 
3 1 2),  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  seems  to  be  his  ;  if  so,  it  is 
probably  his  masterpiece. 

Mary  Beale  had  a  longer  life  than  her  fellow  scholar  and  employed 
it  better.  She  worked  hard  at  her  profession,  as  is  shown  by  her 
husband's  diary,  quoted  by  Walpole  from  Vertue's  papers.  She  was 
born  in  1 632  and  died  in  1 697.  Her  portraits  are  numerous,  but  many 
have  been  given  to  her  master,  Lely.  She  had  a  stronger  inclination 
toward  positive  color  than  either  Lely  or  Greenhill:  her  handling 
is  broader  and  less  fused,  her  composition  and  modelling  flatter,  and 
her  painting  of  flesh  more  interested  in  accident,  than  Lely's. 

The  names  of  several  other  disciples  of  Lely  have  come  down  to 
us,  but  in  most  cases  it  is  impossible  to  attach  any  picture  to  the  name. 
To  this,  however,  Pepys's  "  painter  in  ordinary,"  John  Hayls,  is  an 
exception.  His  portrait  of  Pepys  himself  is  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery  (Fig.  3 1 3),  and  several  of  the  Russell  family  are  at  Woburn. 
Other  English  painters  of  this  period  were  William  Reader,  or 
Rieder,  by  whom  there  is  a  good  picture  in  the  Ashmolean  ;   Anne 

172 


EARLY  PAINTING 


Killigrew,  celebrated  by  Dryden  ;  Edward  Hawker,  who  succeeded 
to  Lely's  house  and  studio  on  that  painter's  death  ;  Sir  John  Gawdie, 
who  was  deaf  and  dumb  ;  and  WilHam  Shepherd.  The  last-named, 
however,  belonged  to  a  somewhat  earlier  generation.  He  was  the 
master  of  the  versatile  Francis  Barlow  (died  1  702),  a  native  of  Lin- 
colnshire, who  painted  animals,  especially  birds,  with  considerable 
felicity.  •  He  was  also  an  engraver,  and  Hollar  engraved  after  him.  His 
edition  of  i'^Esop,  with  plates  from  his  own  designs,  is  well  known. 

Another  '*  strain  "  among  the  painters  of  the  seventeenth  century 
is  represented  by  the  scholars  of  Isaac  Fuller,  whom  I  shall  have  to 
mention  presently.  His  best  pupil  was  John  Riley,  born  in  1646, 
who  would  probably  have  become  a  painter  of  real  importance 
under  favorable  conditions  (Fig.  315).  A  good  and  interesting 
picture,  The  Scullion,  by  him  is  at  Christ  Church.  The  names 
should  also  be  mentioned  of  Thomas  Manby,  a  landscape  painter  ; 
of  the  two  Joseph  Michael  Wrights,  uncle  and  nephew,  the  elder 
a  pupil  of  Jamesone  and  the  master  of  Edmund  Ashfield,  by  whom 
there  are  some  fairly  good  portraits  at  Burghley  House. 

Hitherto  we  have  found  the  influence  of  foreigners  who  had  won 
a  real  vogue  in  England  working  generally  for  good.  Holbein 
might  have  founded  a  great  school  in  England,  had  his  genius  been 
more  in  harmony  with  that  of 
the  mixed  race  among  whom  he 
settled.  The  sympathetic  Van 
Dyck  adopted  a  style  which  was 
in  complete  accord  with  the  Eng- 
lish character  and  would  almost 
certainly  have  produced  the  effect 
in  the  seventeenth  century  it  did 
in  the  eighteenth,  if  puritanism  and 
the  civil  troubles  had  not  dis- 
couraged enterprise  in  the  arts. 
Lely  again,  although  he  was 
content  not  to  probe  too  deeply 
into  his  own  reserve  of  power, 
was  a  real  if  superficial  artist 
whose  example  could  teach  noth- 
ing that  required  to  be  unlearnt. 
His  presence  had  at  least  done 
something  to  prevent  the  fifth- 
rate  foreigners — the  Hoogstratens,  Gascars,  Verelsts,  Huysmans, 
Soests,  Wissings,  &c. — from  doing  all  the  harm  they  might  other- 

173 


FIG.    313. — S.    PEPYS.      (JOHN  HAYLS.) 

National  Portrait  Gallery. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

wise  have  done.  But  on  Lely's  death,  and  even  before  it,  fashion 
threw  itself  at  the  feet  of  perhaps  the  least  interesting  painter  who 
ever  monopolized  the  patronage  of  any  society.  Kneller  had 
facility — he  could  pose  a  sitter  as  well  as  most  modern  photographers  ! 
and  he  could  draw.  But  his  portraits,  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
proclaim  so  frankly  that  his  chief,  if  not  his  only  preoccupation,  was 
with  the  satisfaction  of  his  patrons  at  the  least  possible  outlay  of 
thought  and  muscle,  that  we  can  neither  look  at  nor  remember  them 
for  more  than  a  few  minutes  at  a  time.  His  success  was  fatal  to 
English  painting  during  his  life.  It  set  a  measure  to  which  others 
had  to  dance,  on  pain  of  starvation.  Among  those  Englishmen  who 
worked  between  the  death  of  Lely  and  the  advent  of  Hogarth  we  can 
descry,  now  and  then,  signs  of  a  gift  which  might  have  developed 
richly  had  the  Kneller  tyranny  been  removed.  With  Kneller  himself 
these  pages  are  hardly  concerned.  His  pictures  vary  in  merit  from 
examples  of  what  may  be  called  vigorous  facility  to  performances 
without  even  facility  to  recommend  them.  Among  the  best  may  be 
named  two  portraits  at  Oxford,  Bishop  A  tterhury  and  Sir  Jonathan 
Trelawney,  Bart,  both  at  Christ  Church;  and  Godert  de  Ginkel, 
Earl  of  Athlone,  in  the  Irish  National  Gallery.  Much  of  the  Ginkel, 
however,  is  calmly  appropriated  from  a  Charles  I  of  Van  Dyck! 
The  contemporaries  of  Kneller  were  so  faithful  to  his  example  that 
their  work  need  hardly  be  mentioned  separately.  In  Michael  Dahl, 
the  Swede,  still  more  in  the  Scot,  Jeremiah  Davison,  and  the 
Englishman,  Jonathan  Richardson,  we  divine  powers  which  might 
have  led  to  better  things  had  the  Lubecker  stayed  in  his  own 
country.  Lord  Morton  owns  a  large  picture  by  Davison,  at 
Dalmahoy,  near  Edinburgh,  which  implies  very  considerable  ability  ; 
another  belongs  to  Mr.  Stopford  Sackville,  at  Drayton  House, 
Northamptonshire.  Both  of  these  are  signed.  Jonathan  Richard- 
son shows  both  courage  in  the  attack  and  skill  in  the  solution  of  a 
difficult  problem  in  his  whole  length  of  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  in  the 
Bodleian.  The  last  painter  of  this  stem  who  need  here  be  noticed 
was  Thomas  Hudson,  the  pupil  of  Richardson  and  the  master  of 
Reynolds.  He  seems  to  have  been  of  an  amiable  character  on  the 
whole,  and  not  so  incapable  a  painter  as  used  to  be  supposed.  It  is 
difficult  to  form  a  trustworthy  idea  of  his  powers,  however,  as 
he  painted  little  but  the  heads  and  hands,  leaving  all  the  rest  to 
his  drapery  men,  who  varied  greatly  in  capacity.  The  portrait  of 
Samuel  Scott,  in  the  National  Gallery,  is  warm  and  luminous,  but 
others  are  mechanical  and  cold  to  the  last  degree. 

Here  I  must  hark  back  for  a  moment  to  record  the  beginnings  of 

174 


EARLY  PAINTING 


a  form  of  art  which  has  never,  in  modern  times,  been  popular  in 
England  :  I  mean  the  painting  of  walls  and  ceilings  in  secular  build- 
ings. The  oldest  and  the  best  example  we  can  point  to  is  the 
Rubens  ceiling  of  the  Banqueting  House,  Whitehall,  which  has 
recently  been  restored  for  at  least  the  fourth  time.  The  master 
took  immense  pains  with  this  composition.  A  large  number  of 
preparatory  sketches  and  studies  are  in  existence,  which  make  it 
probable  that  when  the  ceiling  was  in  its  pristine  glory  it  was  one 
of  his  best  things  of  the  kind.  The  subject,  the  History  of  James  I, 
is  divided  into  nine  compartments,  each  painted  on  canvas  and 
attached  afterward.  They  were  fixed  in  their  places  between 
the  end  of  1635  and  the  middle 
of  1 636.  The  price  paid  to 
Rubens  was  £3 ,000,  equal  to 
about  £  1 0,000  at  the  present  day. 

The  first  English  work  of  the 
kind  still  extant  is  the  ceiling  of 
the  Sheldonian  Theatre.  This 
was  painted  in  1 669  by  Robert 
Streater,  Sergeant  Painter  to  King 
Charles  II.  He  also  painted  a 
reredos  for  All  Souls'  College, 
which  was  removed  about  1872, 
when  the  remains  of  the  magnifi- 
cent Gothic  reredos  (Fig.  119),  since 
restored,  were  brought  to  light. 
The    chief    characteristic    of    the   fig.3I4.-godertdeginkel.  (kneller.) 

CiiJ'  •!•  'V  li  National  Gallery,  Dublin. 

bheldonian    ceilmg    is    its   complete 

lack  of  decorative  value.  Another  painter  employed  on  somewhat 
similar  work  at  Oxford  was  Isaac  Fuller,  already  mentioned  as 
the  master  of  John  Riley.  Fuller  was  born  in  1606,  and  received 
a  certain  amount  of  training  in  Paris,  under  Francois  Perrier. 
His  own  portrait,  a  work  of  much  character,  is  at  Queen's  College. 
The  fame  of  these  works — for  they  were  all  famous  in  their  day 
— brought  the  usual  irruption  of  second-rate  foreigners  into  the 
country.  England  was  full  of  buildings  in  which  blank  walls  cried 
out  for  decoration,  and  these,  instead  of  being  used  to  encourage 
and  educate  our  own  painters,  were  handed  over  light-heartedly  to 
first  one  and  then  another  alleged  artist  who  would  have  been  better 
employed  in  blacking  shoes.  Verrio  and  Laguerre  both  had  ability 
of  a  kind,  but  it  was  ability  entirely  divorced  from  any  perception  of 
what  was  fitting  in  the  decoration  of  an  architectural  monument. 

175 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


Verrio  was  the  greater  offender  of  the  two.     He  had  much  neo- 
Italian  vulgarity  ;  while  Laguerre  had  a  redeeming  touch  of  what 

the  Goncourts  call  the  mauvais 
hon-gout  of  the  Frenchman. 
Verrio's  least  offensive  perform- 
ance is  probably  the  great  saloon 
at  Burghley,  while  Laguerre 
never  did  better  than  in  his 
work  for  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller, 
at  Whitton  Hall,  now  called 
Kneller  Hall,  near  Twicken- 
ham. One  of  the  worst  ex- 
amples of  Verrio's  particular 
form  of  vulgarity  is  the  decora- 
tion of  the  **  King's  Great  Stair- 
case "  at  Hampton  Court,  where 
he  carried  out  his  tasteless 
trick  of  abolishing  real  coves, 
cornices,  and  pilasters  for  the 
sake  of  showing  how  well  he 
could  imitate  them  in  paint. 

It  was  probably  the  success  of 
these  men  in  winning  commis- 
sions that  led  young  James  Thornhill,  a  cadet  of  an  old  but  im- 
poverished family  **  of  that  ilk,"  to  turn  his  attention  to  the  same 
form  of  art.  He  is  distinguished  from  his  foreign  rivals  by  greater 
reticence,  and  a  better  sense  of  what  the  occasion  required,  if  not  by 
power.  His  paintings  in  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  show  that  with 
more  experience  he  might  have  become  an  acceptable  decorator. 
They  are  conceived,  at  least,  in  the  right  spirit,  of  dependence  on 
the  architecture.  His  son-in-law,  Hogarth,  painted  wall  pictures 
also.  The  Good  Samaritan  and  The  Pool  of  Bethesda,  in  St. 
Bartholomew's  Hospital. 

A  Scotsman,  Alexander  Runciman  (1736-1785),  showed  more 
power  in  this  same  class  of  art.  He  decorated  the  great  saloon  of 
Penicuik  House,  near  Edinburgh,  with  scenes  from  Ossian,  and  a 
cupola  in  the  same  house  with  scenes  from  the  life  of  St.  Margaret 
of  Scotland.  The  Ossian  decorations  were  destroyed  by  fire  in 
1899,  but  not  before  the  writer  had  seen  them.  They  were  too 
low  in  tone  for  their  purpose,  but  otherwise  showed  great  ability. 
John  Runciman  (1744-1768),  Alexander's  younger  brother, 
showed  high  promise  in  the  same  direction  during  his  short  life. 

176 


FIG.    315. — CHIFFINCH. (jOHN    RILEY.) 

National  Portrait  Gallery. 


\ 


EARLY  PAINTING 

The  last  achievements  of  this  Rubens-born  movement  were  the 
decoration  of  the  great  room  of  the  Society  of  Arts  by  James 
Barry,  which  was  carried  out  between  the  years  1777  and  1780, 
and  the  painting  of  the  grand  staircase  at  Burghley,  Northampton- 
shire, by  Thomas  Stothard,  between  1780  and  1783  (Fig.  372). 
Such  work  of  the  same  class  as  England  has  produced  in  later  years 
has  had  a  different  inspiration. 

The  chief  cause  of  the  English  failure  to  do  much  in  the  way  of 
monumental  painting  has  been  our  habit  of  putting  amateurs — at  the 
best — in  positions  of  control  over  such  matters,  and  making  them 
responsible  for  success  or  failure.  The  best  road  to  success  is  through 
the  want  of  it,  but  then  you  must  be  in  a  position  to  form  a  right 
judgment  as  to  the  causes  of  failure.  Instead  of  being  frightened  by 
an  initial  catastrophe,  the  man  who  knows  clears  away  its  results 
and  tries  again.  This  is  too  much  to  expect  of  amateurs,  and  less 
than  amateurs — Bishops,  Generals,  Speakers,  Black  Rods,  Junior 
Lords  of  the  Treasury,  etc.  They  cannot  profit  by  failure,  for  they 
cannot  really  grasp  its  causes,  and  are  forced  to  believe  that  the 
only  safe  proceeding  is  to  abandon  operations.  In  all  our  attempts 
at  monumental  decoration  in  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  for 
instance,  the  causes  of  positive  failure  are  obvious  to  those  who  have 
trained  their  faculties  to  see  them.  If  our  rulers  would  only  brace 
their  nerves  to  a  new  beginning,  and  start  by  putting  the  manage- 
ment of  the  whole  business  into  the  hands  of  some  individual  who 
had  proved  his  capacity  by  his  own  work,  they  would  almost 
certainly  endow  their  country  with  a  palace  as  dignified  internally 
as  it  is  externally.  What  has  been  done  in  the  City,  in  the  Royal 
Exchange,  shows  both  the  competence  of  many  of  our  painters  and 
the  absurdity  of  our  lay  methods.  There  you  may  find  not  a  few 
well-conceived  wall  pictures — those,  for  instance,  of  Mr.  Abbey  and 
Mr.  Macbeth — but  the  enterprise,  as  a  whole,  is  totally  ruined  by 
the  remarkable  procedure  of  allowing  independent  commissions  to 
be  given,  and  every  artist  to  play  his  own  tune.  How  could 
harmony  be  even  hoped  for  from  such  a  way  of  going  to  work  ? 


For  Bibliography  see  end  of  Chapter  XVI. 


P 


yy^ir] 


177  N 


FIG.    316. — MARRIAGE  A  LA  MODE.      BREAKFAST  SCENE.      (HOGARTH.)      National   Gallery. 


FJG.   317.— MARRIAGE  A  LA  MODE.      TOILET  SCENE.      (HOGARTH.)      National  Gallery. 


.178 


FIG.    318. — REYNOLDS.      (BY  HIMSELF.) 

Royal  Academy. 


FIG.    319. — RAEBURN.       (bY   HIMSELF.) 

National  Gallery,  Edinburgh. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


The  history  of  English  painting,  from  the  destruction  of  its 
ancient  nurseries,  the  monasteries,  down  to  the  second  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  is,  then,  the  history  of  a  struggle  against  foreign 
invasion.  On  two  occasions  the  invaders  were  both  capable  and 
benign,  capable  of  setting  a  great 
example  and  willing  to  let  the 
native  profit  by  it.  But  as  a 
rule,  they  were  men  who  either 
were  or  ought  to  have  been  fail- 
ures at  home,  coming  here  to 
draw  upon  the  deeper  and  more 
facile  purses  of  the  north-western 
barbarian.  It  was  not  a  healthy 
struggle.  It  was  between  men 
patronized  for  their  foreign  birth 
— as  artists,  of  all  kinds,  ever  have 
been  in  modern  England — and 
men  who  thought  their  only 
chance  of  success  lay  in  imitating  the  methods  of  their  rivals.  Thus  we 
always  had  mediocrity  on  the  one  hand,  and  insincerity  on  the  other. 

179  n2 


FIG.  320.- 


-HIS  OWN  SERVANTS. 

National  Gallery. 


(HOGARTH.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, however,  fortune  sent  a  deUverer. 

WilHam  Hogarth  was  exactly  the 
type  of  man  required  by  Enghsh  art 
at  the  time  of  his  birth.  He  was  not 
only  a  great  artist,  he  was  an  organizer 
of  resistance.  He  rallied  the  forces 
of  English  painting,  which  had  been 
dispersed  in  the  overthrow  of  the  old 
religion,  and,  by  tongue  and  pen  as 
well  as  example,  prepared  people's 
minds  for  the  notion  that  art  was  not 
an   exotic.     His   own    early    portraits 


FIG.  321. SHRIMP   GIRL.      (HOGARTH.) 


National  Gallery. 

were  a  declaration  of  war 
against  the  empty  conventions 
which  had  ruled  between  the 
death  of  Lely  and  that  of 
Kneller.  They  encouraged 
those  of  his  fellow-countrymen 
who  had  art  in  them  to  be  true 
to  their  own  feelings,  instead  of 
seeking  out  and  adopting  half 


FIG.    323. — ^DR.   JOHNSON.     (REYNOLDS.) 

National  Gallery. 


FIG.   322. — GARRICK  between  TRAGEDY  AND 
COMEDY.       (REYNOLDS.) 

Lord  Rothschild. 

understood  formulae  from  third  rate 
Continental  studios.  In  spite  of 
the  extreme  contrast  between  their 
works,  one  is  tempted  to  compare 
Hogarth  with  Watteau.  Both  men 
understood  that  their  fellow-country- 
men had  got  into  an  impasse, 
and  both — Hogarth  deliberately, 
Watteau  in  obedience  to  a  less 
conscious  impulse  —  set  themselves 
to  lay  a  new  foundation  on  ideas 
of  their  own,  which  they  felt  to  be 
racial. 

Hogarth   was   born   in   Bartholo- 
180 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.    324. — TWO   GENTLEMEN.      (REYNOLDS.) 

National  Gallery. 


FIG.    325. NELLY   o'bRIEN.       (REYNOLDS.) 

Wallace  Collection. 


mew  Close,  on  the  10th  of  November,  1697.  He  began  active 
life  as  apprentice  to  a  silversmith  ;  but  at  the  age  of  tw^enty-one 
forsook  the  engraving  of  ornaments  and  coats  of  arms  on  silver 
for  copper-plate  engraving  for  the  booksellers.  In  1  730  he  married 
the  daughter  of  Sir  James  Thornhill  and  began  to  paint  portraits 
and  those  "  moralities  "  on  which  his  fame  now  mainly  rests.  In 
1  753  he  added  authorship  to  his  other  accomplishments,  publishing 
that  "  Analysis  of  Beauty  "  which  deserves  so  much  more  respect 
than  it  has  ever  won.  In  1757  he  was  appointed  Sergeant 
Painter  to  the  King,  and  in  1764 
he  died. 

Antaeus  has  seen  himself  re- 
peated again  and  again  in  art  history. 
When  painting  has  fallen  to  be  a 
mere  conventional  habit,  it  has  been 
revived  by  seeking  earth.  Some 
man,  or  group  of  men,  has  insisted 
on  returning  to  the  primitive  found- 
ations of  nature,  to  gather  new 
strength,  and  prepare  for  a  new 
bloom.  Hogarth  was  the  pre- 
Raphaelite  movement  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  He  turned  his  back 
on  the  empty,  weak-kneed  graces 
of  Kneller  and  his  following,   and 

181 


FIG.    326. — GIBBON.      (REYNOLDS.) 

From  Print. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    327. DUCHESS    OF    DEVONSHIRE    AND    BABY. 

(REYNOLDS.)     Duke  of  Devonshire. 


shouted  to  English  art  to  turn  its  face  to  realities  with  him.     His 
invitation  was  not  consciously  accepted,  but  it  had  its  effect.     It  shook 

the  belief  in  formulae  and 
made  painters  think,  with 
the  result  that  before  the 
middle  of  the  century  Eng- 
lish painting  had  entirely 
changed  its  complexion, 
and  from  being  the  most 
feebly  conventional,  had 
become,  of  all  European 
schools,  the  most  robust 
and  most  promising  for  the 
future. 

It  is  only  within  the  last 
decade  or  two  that  we 
have  begun  to  understand 
Hogarth.  It  used  to  be 
the  fashion  to  speak  of  him  as  a  sort  of  showman  in  paint.  His 
pictures  were  discussed  as  if  their  only  claims  to  admiration  lay  in 
the  stories   they   told.     The    truth    is    that    Hogarth   combined   the 

powers  of  a  consummate  technical 
painter,  of  a  true  artist,  and  of  a 
story-teller,  more  completely  than 
any  other  man  had  ever  done 
before.  His  "  morahties  "  not 
only  wed  good  design  to  dramatic 
force,  they  make  each  depend  on 
the  other,  so  that  we  can  scarcely 
tell  whether  we  admire  a  passage 
for  its  pictorial  or  its  dramatic 
qualities.  Fortunately,  our  public 
and  semi-public  collections  are 
rich  in  his  works.  The  National 
Gallery  possesses  sixteen,  includ- 
ing the  Marriage  a  la  Mode, 
the  Shrimp  Girl,  the  portraits  of 
himself  with  his  dog,  of  his  sister, 
and  of  Quin,  the  actor,  the  Calais 
Gate,  and  the  wonderful  group 
of  his  servants'  heads.  The  National  Portrait  Gallery  has  a 
fascinating    little    picture    of    himself    at    his    easel.     In    the    Soane 

182 


FIG.    32». — AGE   OF   INNOCENCE. 

(REYNOLDS.)     National  Gallery. 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


Museum   are    the  Rakes  Progress,    and    the   Election   Series;    in 
the  Foundling  Hospital  the  full  length  of  Captain  Coram,  the  March 


FIG.  329. — MISS  MONCKTON.    (REYNOLDS.) 

From  Print. 

of  the  Guards  to  Finchley,  and 
the  appropriate  Finding  of  Moses; 
St.  Bartholomew's  has  the  two  wall 
pictures,  The  Good  Samaritan  and 
the  Pool  of  ^ethesda,  which  can- 
not be  numbered  among  his  suc- 
cesses ;  while  good  examples  are  to 
be  found  in  the  National  Gallery 
of  Ireland  ;  the  Royal  Academy  ; 
the  British  Museum  ;  the  Fitz- 
william  Museum,  at  Cambridge ; 
and  the  Royal  Collections.  Among 
private  collections,  that  of  Lord 
Ilchester  is  the  richest,  chiefly 
through  the  presence  there  of  the 
Scene  from  the  "Indian  Emperor; 
or,  Conquest  of  Mexico,"  one  of  the 
best  of  all  Hogarth's  pictures  from 
the  executive  standpoint. 

Hogarth    delayed    the    recognition 

183 


FIG.    330. — MRS.   STONE   NORTON. 
(GAINSBOROUGH.) 

Mr.  A.  de  Rothschild. 


FIG.    331. — HON.    MRS.    GRAHAM. 
(GAINSBOROUGH.) 

National  Gallery,  Edinburgh. 

of    his    own    genius    by    his 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    332. — GAINSBOROUGH. 

(by  himself.)     Royal  Academy. 


chauvinistic  pen.  His  diatribes 
against  foreigners,  against  the 
collection  of  "  old  masters," 
against  traditional  likes  and  dis- 
likes generally,  may  have  been 
required  by  the  state  of  opinion  ; 
but  he  suffered  through  being 
their  author.  They  isolated  him, 
and  made  the  very  men  who 
profited  by  his  ideas  shrink  from 
accepting  their  propounder  as  a 
leader.  The  new  independence 
was  his  creation,  but  more  than 
a  century  had  to  pass  before  the 
fact  was  acknowledged.  His 
example  and  expressed  opinions 
had  a  great  effect  upon  the  next 
innovator — the  second  founder, 
we  may  call  him,  of  the  modern  school  of  painting — Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds.  In  Sir  Joshua's  published  writings,  however,  scarcely 
an  allusion  to  Hogarth  is  to  be  found. 

Sir  Joshua  was  Hogarth's  junior  by  nearly  a  generation.  He 
was  born  in  Devonshire  in  1723.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he 
entered    the   studio   of   Thomas   Hudson,    having    already    acquired 

some  little  degree  of  skill  at 
home.  Two  years  later,  having 
had  one  of  those  quarrels  with 
his  master  which  seem  de  rigueur 
with  gifted  artists,  he  returned  to 
Devonshire,  and  established  him- 
self as  a  portrait  painter  at 
Plymouth  Dock,  as  Devonport 
was  then  called.  In  1 746  he 
came  to  London,  and  then, 
in  1  749,  he  started  on  a  voyage 
to  the  Mediterranean,  with  Com- 
modore Keppel,  which  was 
to  end  in  a  three  years* 
stay  in  Italy,  passed  mostly  in 
Rome.  In  1752  he  returned 
„„,  ,,„^„  ,^  to  ^  London,     where     he     spent 

FIG.   333-— MRS.   SIDDONS.  ,  f      1  *        VC  I  1  7AQ 

(GAINSBOROUGH.)     National  Gallery.  the     rest     ot     hlS     lite.      In      I  /DO 

184 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


he  became  first  President  of  the 
Royal  Academy,  and  in  1  792  he 
died. 

If  the  leading  quaHties  of 
Hogarth  were  the  perfectly 
coherent  ones  of  disrespect,  in- 
dependence, and  a  determina- 
tion to  build  his  monument  on 
foundations  of  his  own,  those  of 
Reynolds  were  the  apparently 
inconsistent  ones  of  respect  for 
established  reputations  and  a 
strong  bent  toward  thinking  for 
himself.  Much  of  his  intellect- 
ual activity  was  directed  toward 
discovering  good  reasons  for 
allowing  fifth-rate  artists  to  enjoy 
first-rate  reputations,  and  yet  in 
his  own  practice,  he  was  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  various 
of  painters,  and  one  of  the  least  tolerant  of  all  that  was  stereo- 
typed and  perfunctory. 

The  great  distinction  of  Sir  Joshua's  art,  the  characteristic  which 


FIG.    334. — LADY  MULGRAVE. 

(GAINSBOROUGH.)     Groult  Collection. 


FIG.    335. MISS    HAVERPIELD. 

(GAINSBOROUGH.)   Wallace  Collection. 


185 


.     FIG.    336. — BLUE  BOY. 

(GAINSBOROUGH.)   Duke  of  Westminster. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   337- 


-WATERINO    PLACE.       (GAINSBOROUGH.; 

National  Gallery. 


sets  it  apart  from  that  of  anyone  else,  is  its  variety.     In  other  mat- 
ters   he    had    his    superiors.       But    in    the    variety    which    comes 

naturally  from  a  mind 
always  active,  always 
interested,  always  taking 
a  new  initiative,  no 
painter  of  his  age 
approached  him.  Every 
picture  he  painted,  even 
when  it  was  only  a  head, 
represented  a  conscious 
exertion  of  the  mind. 
And  he  was  moved  by 
beauty  ;  he  was  preoccu- 
pied with  color,  with 
the  texture  of  paint,  even 
with  the  melody  of  line, 
which  last  has  not  always 
appealed  to  the  English- 
man. His  early  pictures — those  painted  before  his  establishment 
in  London  in  1 732 — betray  the  influence  of  Hogarth,  Gandy  of 
Exeter,  and  Rembrandt.  Some  caricatures  painted  in  Rome  are 
especially  Hogarthian  in  their  excellent  technique.  Four  of  these 
(the  most  important  a  parody  on  Raphael's  School  of  Athens,  in 
which  the  men  who  formed  the  English  coterie  in  Rome  are 
substituted  for  the  Greek  philosophers)  are  in  the  Irish  National 
Collection.  But  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  not 
far  advanced  before  Reynolds  had  shaken  down  into  a  style 
which  can  be  recognized  as  his  own  at  a  glance.  During  the 
last  thirty  years  of  his  activity  he  talked  Michael  Angeio  and  the 
Bolognese  ;  but  while  he  talked  he  kept  his  eye  on  Venice,  and 
made  many  dangerous  experiments  in  the  attempt  to  capture  her 
charm.  It  is  probable  that  in  their  early  freshness,  as  they  appeared 
on  the  walls  of  Somerset  House,  many  of  his  pictures  had  a  splendor 
of  color  unsurpassed  even  by  Titian. 

Reynolds  is  not  well  represented  in  our  public  galleries.  Pictures 
by  him  exist  in  private  hands  which  give  a  higher  idea  of  his 
powers  than  anything  to  be  found  in  the  national  collections.  Such 
pictures  are  the  Lady  Crosbie,  in  Sir  Edward  Tennant's  collec- 
tion, the  Duchess  of  Devonshire  with  her  Daughter  (Fig.  327), 
in  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  possession,  Garrick  between  Tragedy 
and  Comedy  (Fig.  322),  which  belongs  to  Lord  Rothschild,  several  of 

186 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.   338. — THE  MORNING  WALK  ;      PORTRAITS  OF  SQUIRE  AND  MRS.  HALLETT. 

(GAINSBOROUGH.)     Lord  Rothschild. 


187 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


the  pictures  at  Althorp,  Lord  Leicester's  Charles  James  Fox,  Master 
Crewe,  at  Crewe  Hall,  and  the  great  family  picture  at  Blenheim 

of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough 


339. LANDSCAPE.       (GAINSBOROUGH.) 

Mrs.  Joseph. 


I- 


with  his  wife  and  children. 
But  the  Lord  Heathfield, 
the  Lady  Cockhurn  and 
her  Children,  the  Angels' 
Heads,  the  Age  of  Inno- 
cence (Fig.  328),  and  the 
three  Montgomeries  as  The 
Graces,  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery, with  the  Nelly  O'Brien, 
the  Mrs.  Carnac,  and  others 
in  the  Wallace  Collection, 
make  a  better  show  for  Rey- 
nolds than  we  can  point  to  for 
his  great  rival  Gainsborough. 
In  many  ways  Gainsborough  was  the  antithesis  of  Sir  Joshua, 
which  makes  it  difficult  to  avoid  a  comparison  when  writing  of  their 
art.     Gainsborough    was    the    younger    by    four    years.     He    was 

born  in  Suffolk  in  1727.  With 
the  exception  of  the  years  be- 
tween 1741  and  1746,  which 
he  spent  in  London  as  the 
pupil,  successively,  of  Gravelot, 
the  French  illustrator  and  en- 
graver, and  Francis  Hayman, 
his  whole  active  career  divides 
itself  into  three  periods  of  four- 
teen years  each  :  from  1746  to 
1  760  at  Ipswich  ;  from  1  760  to 
1774  at  Bath;  from  1774  to 
his  death  in  1788  in  London. 
He  never  left  his  own  country, 
and  within  it  his  travelling  was 
confined  to  one  or  two  excursions 
into  Wales  and  the  north  of 
England.  His  development  was 
quite  normal.  He  began  by 
painting  with   extreme  care  and 

riG.340.-MRS.  ROBINSON.      (GAINSBOROUGH.)       ^^^^\    ^^    ^    ^^y^    ^bvioUsly    baScd 


Wallace  Collection. 


on 

188 


the    Dutch    pictures    which 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


were  at  that  time  present  in  considerable  numbers  in  East  Anglia. 
His  early  landscapes  remind  one  of  Wynants,  his  early  figures  of 
Metsu  or  Terborch.  In  Bath  his  design  became  broader  and 
more  highly  organized,  his  brushing  freer  and  more  personal, 
and  his  color  warmer.  In  London  all  these  developments  became 
more  assured,  but  there  is  no  such  breach  of  continuity  between 
his  Bath  and  his  London  manner  as  used  to  be  asserted.  Between 
Ipswich  and  Bath  there  is  such  a  breach.  In  Suffolk  his  masters 
were  the  Dutchmen.  At  Bath  and  in  its  neighborhood  he  was 
brought  face  to  face  with  Van  Dyck,  and  soon  drew  himself  out  of 

the     prim,     collected     manner     of 

Ipswich,  to  put  on  some,  at  least, 
of  the  swing  and  freedom  of  the  great 
cosmopolitan. 

It  is  impossible  to  reach  a  com- 
plete idea  of  Gainsborough's  powers 
from  our  public  collections.  In  Lon- 
don, the  National  Gallery  has  one 
first-rate  portrait  in  the  Mrs.  Siddons 
(Fig.  333),  and  one  fine  land- 
scape in  The  Watering  Place  (Fig. 
337).  The  Wallace  Collection  owns 
the  Mary  Robinson  (Fig.  340)  and 
Miss  Haverfield  (Fig.  335).  The 
famous  Mrs.  Graham  (Fig.  331) 
hangs  in  the  Scottish  Gallery. 
Against  each  of  these,  however, 
some  slight  objection  can  be  urged. 
The  red  curtain  behind  the  head  of 
Siddons  is  not  all  it  should  be,  the 
Perdita  Robinson  is  hardly  a  design, 
the  Mrs.  Graham  has  not  yet  com- 
pletely thrown  off  the  effects  of  her  fifty  years  in  the  dark,  and  The 
Watering  Place  is  very  low  in  tone.  The  value  of  a  fine  Gains- 
borough is  now  so  enormous  that  the  nation  is  never  likely  to  get 
another,  so  the  student  who  wishes  to  know  what  he  could  do  at  his 
happiest  moment  must  see  The  Morning  Walk  ^^^  Mrs.  Sheridan, 
at  Lord  Rothschild's ;  the  Miss  Linley  and  her  Brother,  at  Knole ; 
the  Mall,  in  Sir  Audley  Neeld's  collection  at  Grittleton;  the  three 
portraits  of  ladies  in  Mr.  Alfred  de  Rothschild's  dining-room  in 
Seamore  Place;  the  Blue  Boy  at  Grosvenor  House;  the  Lady 
Muhravcy  in  the  collection  of  the  late  M.  Groult ;  and  as  many 

189 


FIG.    341. — LADY   BEAUCHAMP   PROCTOR. 

(romney.)     Mr.  L.  Raphael. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


as  possible  ot  the  wonderful 
drawings  which  earn  a  place 
for  Gainsborough  among  the 
great  masters  of  the  point. 

For  if  Reynolds  was  vari- 
ous in  one  way,  his  rival  was 

various  in  another.     **  D 

him  !  how  various  he  is  !  " 
Gainsborough  is  said  to  have 
exclaimed  before  the  Presi- 
dent's pictures  in  the  ex- 
hibition. But  he  himself  had 
his  own  variety,  for  he 
excelled  in  portraits,  in  land- 
scape, as  an  animalier,  and 
as  a  maker  of  drawings. 
He  beat  Reynolds,  too,  in  technique,  for  his  pictures  stand  like 
rocks,  when  not  violently  interfered  with,  and  his  manner — **  all 
those  odd  scratches  and  marks  .  .  .  this  chaos,  this  uncouth  and 
shapeless  appearance,"  to  use  Sir  Joshua's  own  words — leads 
through  freedom  up  to  unity  with  an  unerring  directness  rivalled 
only  by  the  greatest  executants,  by  men  like  Franz  Hals,  Rubens, 
Velazquez,  Raeburn,  Manet,  and  Sargent. 

The  third  member  of  the  triumvirate  by  whom  the  ground  floor 

of  the  edifice  of  English  paintin 


FIG.    342. CHILDREN   OF    EARL   COWER. 

(romney.)     Duke  of  Sutherland. 


FIG.    343. — LADY    ARABELLA    WARD. 

(romney.)     Viscount  Bangor. 


was  raised  on  the  foundations  lai< 
by  Hogarth  was  Gainsborough's 
junior  by  seven  years  and  Sir 
Joshua's  by  eleven.  George 
Romney  was  born  at  Dalton, 
in  Lancashire,  at  the  end  of 
1 734.  He  contrived  to  educate 
himself  as  a  painter  with  no  better 
help  than  that  of  one  Steele,  a 
strolling  artist  who  pervaded  the 
northern  counties  at  the  time. 
This  was  a  great  achievement, 
for  Romney  became  an  excellent 
draughtsman  and  a  master  of 
technique  in  its  wider  sense  very 
early  in  his  career.  In  1  756  he 
married,  and  settled  in  Kendal  as 
190 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


a  portrait  painter.     In   1 762  he  came  to  London,  leaving  his  wife 

and  two  children  in  the  North.     In   1 773  he  went  to  Italy,  where 

he  stayed  two  years.     Returning  to  London  in   1  775,  he  settled  in 

Cavendish     Square,     and     there 

divided  the  patronage  of  the  town 

with  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough. 

About  1  795  he  moved  to  Hamp- 

stead,    where    he    built    himself    a 

studio   which   now   forms   part   of 

the    local    Conservative    club.     In 

1799   he   went   back    to    Kendal, 

dying    three    years    later    in    the 

presence  of  a  wife  and  son  whom 

he    had    only    seen    at    very    long 

intervals   since   he   had   left   home 

nearly  forty  years  before. 

Romney's  popularity  has  fluctu- 
ated more  than  that  of  any  other 
English  painter  of  importance. 
Forty  years  ago  his  pictures  were 
entirely  neglected.  Their  market  value  was  trifling,  and  his  name 
was  never  mentioned  except  as  that  of  an  artist  who  had  sunk 
beneath  the  surface.  This  state  of  things  was  due  partly,  if  not 
wholly    to  the  mere  fact  that  his  works  were  out   of  sight.     The 


FIG.    344. — EUPHROSYNE.      (rOMNEY.) 
From  Print. 


FIG.    345. — MRS.    CURRIE. 

(romney.)     National  Gallery. 


191 


FIG.    346. — MRS.   JORDAN.      (ROMNEY.) 

From  Print. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


I'IG.    347. LADY   LOUISA    CONNOLLY. 

(ALLAN  RAMSAY.)     Holland  House. 


national  collections  contained  none 
of  any  importance  and  the  country 
houses  were  not  public.  Another 
cause,  however,  was  the  character 
of  his  genius.  In  one  respect  Rom- 
ney  appeals  to  the  crowd  :  he  is 
the  painter,  par  excellence,  of  the 
pretty  Englishwoman.  No  one  has 
succeeded  so  well  as  he  in  putting 
on  canvas  the  sort  of  head  an 
English  novelist  selects  for  his 
heroine.  But,  artistically,  Romney 
was  somewhat  of  an  exotic.  His 
gift  was  more  Latin  than  that  of  any 
other  important  English  painter. 
He  thought  in  line,  and  is,  in  his 
best  work,  more  akin  to  French 
masters  of  black  and  white,  and — 
to  make  a  very  long  stride — to  the 
Greek  sculptors,  than  to  his  own 
British  contemporaries.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  name  a  picture,  in  any  school,  which  unites  modernity 
with  genuine  classical  feeling  as  happily  as  the  Children  of  Earl 
Gower — who  "  dansent  en  rond  "  (Fig.  342).  It  is  a  delicious  pict- 
ure, conceived  on  lines  which  have  led  to  boredom  in  other  hands. 

It  is  essentially  a  design.  Its  color 
is  used  in  the  spirit  of  the  map- 
maker,  to  distinguish  between  one 
province  and  another.  And  yet  it 
is  good  color  in  its  way.  Romney 's 
workmanship  was  so  clean — his 
brushing  so  prompt  and  free  from 
confusion  or  repetition  —  that  his 
color  has  remained  transparent  and 
luminous,  and  therefore  not  too  un- 
pleasant even  when  slightly  hot. 
But  perhaps  the  most  surprising 
thing  about  Romney  is  the  early 
mastery  of  academic  virtues  which 
he  won.  So  far  as  we  know,  he 
had  nothing  that  would  now  be 
called  a  training,  and  yet  his  first 
192 


FIG.    348. — PAUL   SANDY. 

.  (cotes.)     National  Gallery. 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


London  portraits  are  notable  for  ex- 
cellent drawing,  and  for  a  skill  and 
taste  in  the  disposition  of  drapery 
which  no  one  has  surpassed.  They 
hold  their  own  with  the  deliberate 
classicisms  of  Louis  David  and  other 
French  painters  of  the  Revolution. 

Romney  has  been  still  less  for- 
tunate than  Reynolds  and  Gains- 
borough in  his  fight  for  publicity. 
Scarcely  any  picture  showing  him 
quite  at  his  best  has  won  its  way 
into  a  national  collection.  The 
London  Portrait  Gallery,  indeed, 
has  a  head  of  himself,  one  of  the 
best  self-portraits  left  by  any 
painter,  and  the  Wallace  Collec- 
of  "  Perdita "  Robinson;  but  the 
Gallery  include  nothing  in  the  first 
and  examples  are  almost  entirely  absent  from  the  provincial 
His  finest  works  are  in  the  collections  of  the  Duke  of 


FIG.  349. — HORACE  WALPOLE. 
(NATHANIEL  HONE.) 


tion  a  fine  and  famous  head 
seven  pictures  in  the  National 
flight, 

museums,  nis  nnest  worKs  are 
Sutherland  (Gower  Children,  Fig.  342,  and  Lord  Stafford  in  a 
Van  Dyck  Dress),  Sir  George  Russell  (Mrs.  Russell  and  Child), 
Lord  Powis  (Hon.  Charlotte  Clive),  Lord  Iveagh  (Lady  Hamilton 
Spinning),  Lord  Bangor  (Lady  Arabella  Ward,  Fig.  343), 
Lord  Warwick  (Lady  Warwick  cmd  her  Children  and  Miss  Vernon 
as  Hebe),  Sir  Edward  Ten- 
nant  (Mrs.  Jordan,  Fig. 
346,  and  Countess  of 
Derby),  Lord  Cathcart 
(Countess  of  Mansfield),  Mr. 
Leopold  Hirsch  (Mrs. 
Raikes),  Mr.  C.  Wertheimer 
(Ladies  Caroline  and  Eliza- 
beth Spencer  and  Mrs.  John- 
son), Sir  Hugh  Cholmeley 
(Catherine  and  Sarah  Chol- 
meley), Mr.  L.  Raphael 
(Lady  Beauchamp  Proctor, 
Fig.  341,  and  Lady  Prescott 

and  Family),  Mr.  Tankerville  ^^^  350.-CAROLINE  lady  Holland. 

Chamberlain  (Lady  Hamilton  (allan  ramsay.)   Holland  House. 

193  O 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND. 


FIG.  351. — MRS.  MARGARET  CROWE.       (OPIE.) 


as  a  Bacchante),  and  Mr.  Ralph 
Bankes  (Miss  Woodley,  after- 
ward Mrs.  Bankes). 

Side  by  side  with  these  three 
men  Richard  Wilson  was  doing 
for  landscape  painting  what  they 
were  doing  for  portraits.  Born  in 
1713,  he  was  senior  to  them  all, 
but  it  was  not  until  his  return  to 
London  from  Italy,  in  1  753,  that 
he  renounced  portraiture,  in  which 
he  had  won  a  certain  measure  of 
success.  The  credit  of  the  change 
has  been  put  down  to  Zuccarelli, 
who  saw  some  of  the  Englishman's 
sketches  in  Rome  and  strongly 
advised  him  to  devote  his  powers 
to  the  painting  of  landscape.  It  is  probable  enough  that  his  advice 
would  not  have  been  so  readily  taken  had  not  the  appearance  of  Sir 
Joshua,  Gainsborough,  and  Romney  narrowed  existing  opportunities 
in  the  other  genre.  Wilson,  like  the  three  portrait  painters,  had 
his  roots  in  tradition,  but  his  head  was  in  the  sun.  In  his  methods, 
and  even  in  his  ideals,  we  can  trace  the  influence  of  Claude,  of 
Lucatelli,  of  Panini,  of  Zuccarelli  ;  but  this  debt  he  supplements 
with  his  own  gift  of  design  and  sense  of  beauty,   his  own  poet's 

imagination  and  freshness  of  inter- 
est in  the  power  of  art  to  suggest 
romance  and  Italy.  At  his  best 
he  has  a  distinction  not  again  to 
be  reached  before  the  flowering  of 
Corot.  He  has  depth,  repose, 
and  essential  humanity.  Unfor- 
tunately he  is  not  always,  or  often, 
at  his  best.  His  life  was  a  strug- 
gle and  he  painted  too  much,  so 
that  many  canvases  which  quite 
correctly  bear  his  name  represent 
him  at  moments  when  interest  and 
inspiration  were  asleep.  As  a 
whole,  however,  he  was  a  true, 
ife-giving  painter,  and  so  has  had 


FIG.352.—GARRICK.  (R.E.PINE.)  From  Print,      a   following.     In   his   own    time, 

194 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.    353- — LADY.      (hOPPNER.)  FIG.    354. — LADY.      (hOPPNER.) 

Mrs.  Trevor  Martin. 

however,  the  only  artist  of  any  power  who  was  much  affected 
by  his  example  was  the  Irishman,  George  Barret,  whose  later 
works  betray  a  close  study  of  Wilson  and  are  sometimes  cata- 
logued under  his  name.  Other  disciples,  such  as  Farrington  and 
William  Hodges,  were  comparatively  powerless.  Wilson's  death 
occurred  in  1  782. 

Wilson's  best  pictures  are,  as  a  rule,  comparatively  small,  simple 
compositions,  broad  in  handling,  finely  balanced  in  design,  luminous 
in  color.  Two  little  Scenes  in 
Italy  in  Jthe  National  Gallery  are 
of  delightful  quality,  reminding  us 
of  Guardi  by  their  freedom  and  of 
Chardin  by  their  crumby  paste. 
His  more  ambitious  efforts,  such  ^is 
the  Niohe  in  the  National  Gallery, 
of  which  Sir  Joshua  made  rather 
tasteless  fun  in  his  fourteenth  dis- 
course, are  less  satisfactory.  In  his 
preoccupation  with  gods  and  god- 
desses he  loses  the  transparent 
color  and  the  unity  of  design  on 
which   his  charm   depends. 

The  spirit  of   modern  painting — 
for  through  it  all   runs  a  thread  of  ^^^  355._portrait  of  a  lady. 

unity— sprmgs    from     the     example  (hoppner.)    Mrs.  Fieischmann. 

195  O  2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

of  these  five  Englishmen : 
Hogarth,  Reynolds,  Gains- 
borough, Romney,  and  Wilson  : 
supplemented  by  that  of  one 
later  man  of  genius,  in  Con- 
stable. Their  activity  covered 
the  years  between  1 735  and 
1 795,  and  it  breathed  a  new 
vitality  into  an  art  which  was 
practically  moribund.  Good 
painters  existed  elsewhere,  of 
course  :  Antonio  Canale  and 
Giambattista  Tiepolo  in  Italy, 
Watteau  and  Chardin  in  France, 
were  no  mean  successors  to  the 
best  who  had  gone  before.  But 
they  were  successors.  Their  art 
was  in  the  sunset  rather  than 
the  sunrise.  And  delightful  as  we  find  it,  it  was  rather  a  solace 
than  a  stimulus.  Some  might  say  the  same  of  Wilson.  But  so  far 
as  his  art  was  retrospective  it  deserved  and  won  little  attention. 
His  influence  rested  upon  his  development  of  the  natural  capacities 
of  landscape,  in  color  and  atmosphere. 

Side    by    side    with    these    originators    a    number    of    men    were 


FIG.  356. — PORTRAIT  OF  A  LADY.      (HOPPNER.) 

Mrs.  Trevor  Martin. 


FIG.    357. — SISTERS   FRANKLAND. 

(HOPPNER.)     From  Print. 


196 


FIG.    358. — DOUGLAS   CHILDREN. 

(HOPPNER.)     From  Print. 


f 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.  359. — LADY  STEUART  OF  COLTNESS. 

(raeburn.)     Mrs.  Fleischmann. 


producing  pictures  of  sufficient 
merit  to  give  them  a  right  to  places 
in  a  biographical  dictionary.  The 
most  attractive,  both  as  an  artist 
and  as  a  man,  was  the  Scotsman, 
Allan  Ramsay.  He  was  born  in 
Edinburgh,  in  1713,  the  son  of 
Allan  Ramsay,  the  poet  and  book- 
seller. At  the  age  of  sixteen  he 
became  a  foundation  member  of 
the  short-lived  Academy  of  St. 
Luke  in  Edinburgh.  About  1  734 
he  came  to  London  for  a  time, 
went  on,  two  years  later,  to  Italy, 
returned  to  Edinburgh  in  1 739, 
and  finally  established  himself  in 
London  in  1 752.  In  1 767  he 
became  Painter  in  Ordinary  to 
George  III,  and  in  1  784  he  died. 

Ramsay  has  hitherto  been  robbed  of  his  deserts  by  the  foisting  of 
bad  pictures  with  which  he  had  nothing  to  do  into  his  ceuvre,  by 
the  failure  of  any  good  example  of  his  powers  to  win  entrance 
to  a  metropolitan  gallery,  and  by  his  unfitness  for  the  post  of 
portrait-maker  to  the  King.  The  Scottish  national  collection  has  a 
delicious  half-length  of  his  wife,  a 
niece  of  the  great  Lord  Mansfield. 
A  fine  male  portrait  is  in  the 
National  Gallery  of  Ireland  ;  and 
the  collections  of  Lord  Lothian, 
Lord  Stair,  Sir  Thomas  Gibson 
Carmichael,  and  Mr.  Thomas  Bar- 
ing have  good  examples.  Holland 
House  is  rich  in  his  works  (Figs. 
347,  ^A&y.  With  more  self-confi- 
dence Ramsay  would  have  been 
one  of  the  best  painters  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  pictures 
he  carried  out  with  his  own  hand 
are  distinguished  by  an  exquisite 
sensibility,  by  a  reserve  and  light- 
ness of  execution  which  occasion- 
ally border  on  timidity.     In  color 

197 


FIG.   360. — LORD   NEWTON.      (rAEBURN.) 

National  Gallery,  Edinburgh. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    3C1. — MRS.    JAMES    CAMPBELL. 

(raeburn.)      Mr.  Lionel  Muirhead. 


they  show  a  pink  suffusion  which 
is  characteristic. 

To  certain  other  painters  whose 
careers  coincided,  more  or  less, 
with  those  of  the  epoch-making 
five,  allusion  must  be  brief. 
Francis  Hayman  (1708-1776)  is 
now  remembered  chiefly  because 
Gainsborough  was  his  pupil. 
Arthur  Pond  (1  705-1  758,  Fig. 
375),  Joseph  Highmore  (1692- 
1780),  George  Knapton  (1698- 
1778),  Arthur  Devis  the  elder 
(1711-1787),  Nathaniel  Hone 
(1 7 18- 1784),  Tilly  Kettle  (1740- 
1786),  Henry  Walton  (1720?- 
1  790  ?),  Charles  Brooking  (1  723- 
1  753)  the  sea  painter  (Fig.  376)  ; 
all  these  were  able  to  turn  out  good  pictures  on  occasion,  and  it 
is  much  to  be  regretted  that  no  provision  now  exists  for  collecting 
examples  of  their  work  for  the  nation.  They  had  one  great  quality 
in  common  :  they  could  all  paint.  The  meagre,  starved  impasto, 
the  paint  rubbed  into  the  canvas  rather  than  laid  upon  it,  of, which 

we  have  seen  too  much  since, 
looks  wretched  indeed  beside  the 
fat,  frank,  and  free  handling  of 
the  old  English  school. 

The  effect  of  good  example  on 
those  who  immediately  followed 
Sir  Joshua,  Gainsborough  and 
Romney,  was  like  that  of  warm 
rain  on  a  parched  garden.  The 
dryness  disappeared,  and  even 
when  no  high  degree  of  merit 
was  reached,  art  with  life  in  its 
veins  shot  up  all  over  the  coun- 
try. The  second-rate  men  who 
worked  between  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
early  years  of  the  nineteenth  were 
no  longer  mere  repeaters  of  a  pat- 
tern,   depending    on    journeymen 

198 


FIG.    362. — MRS.    FERGUSSCN.      (rAEBURN.) 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.  363. — NATHANIEL  SPENS.     (raeburn.)     Archer's  Hall,  Edinburgh. 


199 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    364. — SIR   JOHN   SINCLAIR   OF 
ULBSTER.       (RAEBURN.) 


for  the  minor  details  of  their  work. 
They  were  modest  artists,  trying,  at 
least,  to  say  something  in  their  selected 
medium.  They  included  one  man 
of  genius,  in  Hoppner,  and  many 
painters  of  ability  :  Francis  Wheatley 
(1747-1801),  Thomas  Beach  (1738- 
1806),  Nathaniel  Dance  (1735- 
1811).  John  Opie  (1761-1807), 
Wright  of  Derby  (1734-1797), 
Robert  Edge  Pine  (1730-1788), 
Hugh  D.  Hamilton  (1  734  ?- 1805), 
John  Downman  (1750-1824),  whose 
stained  drawings  now  enjoy  such  a 
vogue,  and  Francis  Cotes  (1725- 
1  770).  Cotes,  whom  I  have  named 
last,  really  belonged  to  the  same  gen- 
eration as  Sir  Joshua,  for  he  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  born  in  1725, 
and  he  died  in  1  770.  But  as  an  oil  painter  he  was  so  severely  in- 
fluenced by  Reynolds,  that  he  must  take  a  place  among  his  disciples. 
At  the  end  of  his  comparatively  short  life  his  pictures  became  so 
like  those  of  the  President,  that  several  have  since  been  sold  as 
Sir  Joshua's,  and  even  exhibited  at  the  "  Old  Masters  "  as  such 
without  exciting  much  protest. 

Hoppner  himself,  fine  painter  as  he 
was,  would  never  have  produced  the 
works  for  which  the  world  competes  so 
eagerly  to-day,  had  not  Sir  Joshua  lived 
before  him.  Hoppner  was  of  German 
extraction,  but  nothing  could  be  less 
Teutonic  than  his  art  :  unless,  indeed, 
his  tendency  to  heat,  as  a  colorist,  was 
due  to  his  blood.  He  was  born  in 
1 759,  and  began  life  as  a  chorister  in 
the  Chapel  Royal.  When  his  voice 
broke  he  took  to  another  form  of  art, 
and  became  a  Royal  Academy  stu- 
dent. Through  the  patronage  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  he  soon  conquered 
the  town,  sharing  its  favors  with 
Lawrence  for  nearly  twenty  years. 
200 


( 


fig.  365. — major  clunes. 

(raeburn.) 

National  Gallery,  Edinburgh. 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.    366. — J.   J.    ANGERSTEIN. 

(LAWRENCE.)     National  Gallery. 


He     died,     not     quite     sane,     in 
1810. 

Hoppner  has  been  even  more 
unlucky  than  Ramsay  in  failing  to 
make  his  proper  entry  into  the 
nation's  collections.  No  idea  of 
his  powers  can  be  formed  from  the 
National  or  the  Portrait  Gallery, 
and  he  is  almost  entirely  absent 
from  the  provincial  museums.  His 
best  pictures  have  been  changing 
hands  frequently  of  late  years, 
under  the  stress  of  enormous  prices. 
The  fine  group  of  the  four  Douglas 
children  (Fig.  358),  which  used  to 
be  in  Lord  Morton's  collection  at 
Dalmahoy,  is  now  the  property  of 
Lord  Rothschild.  The  famous 
Sisters  Frankland  (Fig.  357)  has 
passed  into  the  collection  of  Sir  Edward  Tennant.  A  lovely  por- 
trait of  some  beautiful  unknown  was  sold  for  a  great  price  at  Christie's 
in  1905,  and  now  belongs  to  Mr.  C.  Wertheimer.  The  Lady  Louisa 
Manners,  the  group  of  Hoppner's  own  children — Children  Bathing 
—Lord  Darnley's  Countess  of  Darnley  and  Child,  Lord  Rosebery  s 
William  Pitt,  and  a  series  of 
three  beautiful  portraits  of  beauti- 
ful women,  now  in  the  possession 
of  Mrs.  Trevor  Martin,  of  Port- 
land Place,  for  whose  husband's 
family  they  were  painted,  are  all 
among  his  best  productions  (Figs. 
353,  354,  356). 

Contemporary  with  Hoppner, 
and  belonging  like  him  to  the 
second  generation  of  our  national 
portrait  painters,  were  two  men 
of  great  originality,  in  Raeburn 
and  Lawrence.  Raeburn  was  the 
elder.  He  was  born  in  1 756, 
in  Edinburgh,  worked  under 
David  Martin,  painted  minia- 
tures,   and   then,    at   the   age   of 

201 


367. — MRS.    WOLFF.      (LAWRENCE.) 

From  Print. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    368. — PRINCESS   CHARLOTTE. 

(LAWRENCE.)     Earl  of  Ilchester. 


twenty-two,  married  a  wife  with 
means,  who  enabled  him  to  visit 
Italy.  After  a  stay  there  of  about 
two  years  he  established  himself  in 
Edinburgh,  where  he  was  undis- 
puted head  of  the  native  school  for 
more  than  a  generation,  and  painted 
every  one  of  "light  and  leadmg"  in 
the  Scottish  capital  with  the  one 
important  exception  of  Robert 
Burns. 

Raeburn  holds  a  place  in  the 
small  company  of  men  who  have 
been  real  pioneers.  He  was  born 
into  a  country  swarming  with  workers 
in  the  particular  form  of  art  he  chose, 
and  dominated  by  at  least  three  men 
of  genius  ;  and  yet  he  built  up  a  style 
which  was  at  once  obviously  sincere,  quite  different  from  what  he 
saw  about  him,  and  so  truly  begotten  of  the  metier  that  it  has  since 
grown  into  an  European  ideal.  So  far  as  we  can  now  guess,  his 
school  was  the  portrait  of  Pope  Innocent  X,  by  Velazquez,  in  the 
Doria-Pamfili  palace.  At  least,  that  is  the  only  masterpiece,  in  the 
manner  which  appealed  to  him,  with 
which  we  know  him  to  have  been 
familiar.  There  is  nothing  to  show 
that  he  ever  met  a  Frans  Hals.  But 
a  single  spark  is  enough  to  set  genius 
alight.  Van  Dyck  became  the  English 
Van  Dyck  at  the  sight  of  a  few  minia- 
tures by  Samuel  Cooper,  and  the 
Spaniard's  pope  was  more  than  ca- 
pable of  firing  the  ambitions  of  a 
man  like  Raeburn. 

Raeburn's  art  improved  steadily  from 
his  definite,  settlement  in  Edinburgh  to 
the  end  of  his  life.  But,  unlike  most 
painters  who  have  not  stood  still,  he 
developed  from  a  perhaps  excessive 
breadth  of  touch  and  simplification  of 
the  planes,  to  a  rounder  modelling  and 
a  more  united  impasto.     All  his  stages 

202 


FIG.    369. — LADY   DOVER   AND 
CHILD.      (LAWRENCE.) 

From  Print. 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.    370. MISS    FARREN    (lADY   DERBY). 

(LAWRENCE.)     From  Print. 


can  be  traced,  in  good  examples, 
in  the  two  chief  Scottish  collec- 
tions— the  Edinburgh  National 
Gallery  and  the  Glasgow  Museum 
— but  no  other  public  institution 
has  so  far  obtained  any  of  his  finest 
works.  The  Louvre  has  been 
especially  unlucky  ;  for  of  three 
pictures  there  ascribed  to  him,  not 
one  has  any  claim  to  be  considered 
his !  The  following  list  is  confined 
to  what  seem  to  me  his  best  works  : 
— Edinburgh  National  Gallery  : 
Mrs.  Campbell  of  Balliemore, 
Lord  Newton  (Fig.  360),  Glen- 
garry (on  loan),  John  Wauchope, 
Major  Clune  (Fig.  365),  and 
His  Own  Portrait  (Fig.  319). 
Archer's  Hall :  Nathaniel  Spens 
(Fig.  363).  Trinity  House,  Leith  : 
Viscount  Duncan.  Glasgow 
Museum  :  Mrs.  W.  Urquhart  and  Sir  John  Sinclair  of  Ulhster, 
Bart  (Fig.  364)  on  loan.  Private  collections :  Sir  George  Douglas 
Clerk,  Sir  John  and  Lady  Clerk ;  Sir  Robert  Dundas,  Lord  Presi- 
dent   Dundas;    Mr.    Munro    Ferguson,     William      Ferguson    of 

Kilrie,  General  Sir  Ronald  Ferguson, 
G.C.B.,  Ronald  and  Robert  Ferguson, 
and  Robert  Ferguson  of  Raith;  Mrs. 
Fleischmann,  Lady  Steuart  of  Colt- 
ness  (Fig.  359)  ;  Lord  Tweedmouth, 
Lady  Raeburn;  Mrs.  Pitman,  John 
Tait  of  Harvieston  and  his  Grandson ; 
Mrs.  Ernest  Hills,  The  Macdonalds 
of  Clanranald ;  Mr.  Arthur  Sander- 
son, Mrs.  Cruikshank;  Mr.  Lionel 
Muirhead,  Mrs.  James  Campbell 
(Fig.  361);  Lord  Moncrieff,  Rev.  Sir 
H.  Moncrieff  Wellwood;  Hon.  Mrs. 
Baillie  Hamilton,  The  Mac  Nab; 
Mr.  J.  C.  Wardrop,  James  Wardrop 
of  TorbanhiU;  and  Mrs.  Joseph, 
Male  Portrait. 
203 


FIG.    371. POPE   PIUS   VII. 

(LAWRENCE.)     From  Print. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  372. — INTEMPERANCE.      (sTOTHARD.)      National   Gallery. 


Raeburn's  example  had  its  effect,  of  course,  on  his  Scottish  con- 
temporaries, but  only  one  of  these  rose  to  any  great  excellence,  and 

he  too  often  found 
the  early  Victo- 
rian atmosphere 
stifling  to  his  pow- 
ers :  I  allude  to 
Sir  John  Watson 
Gordon,  whose 
best  works  are  re- 
spectable echoes 
of  Raeburn. 

The  originality 
of  Lawrence  was 
very  different  from 
that  of  Raeburn, 
but  originality  it 
was,  nevertheless.  It  set  up  a  new  ideal  in  portraiture,  and 
had  a  character  of  its  own.  It  will  always  fail  to  rank  with  the 
other  originalities — those  of  Sir  Joshua,  Gainsborough,  Romney, 
and  Raeburn — because,  in  the  first  place,  it  was  less  essentially 
pictorial,  and,  in  the  second,  it  represented  a  far  less  admirable  type 
of  thought.  But  Lawrence  went  his  own  way,  through  the  am- 
bitions and  ideas  of  the  great  time  in  which  he  lived,  with  a  single- 
mindedness  and  belief  in  what  he  was  doing  which  one  cannot  help 

admiring.  His  art  was  based 
on  the  superficial  aspects  of 
things  ;  it  was  nourished  by 
glances  at  outsides  rather  than 
by  sympathetic  divinations  ; 
it  appeals  to  us  as  women  do 
at  a  ball,  not  in  talks  by  the 
fireside  ;  and  it  has  unhappy 
faults  of  technique.  For  he 
was  no  colorist,  and  had 
wrong  ideas  about  how  paint 
should  be  "  left  " — to  use  Sir 
Joshua's  phrase.  But  his  art 
has  that  about  it  which  makes 
it  an  insuppressible  feature  in 
during   the   waning  of   the 


FIG.   373- — DEATH   OF   MAJOR   PIERSON. 

(COPLEY.)     National  Gallery. 


our   mental   visions 
Georges. 


of   English   society 
204 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.   374- 


-WHITE   HORSE   AND   GROOM. 
(STUBBS.) 

National  Gallery. 


Lawrence  was  born  in  1  769,  in  the  same  year  as  Wellington  and 
perhaps  Napoleon.  He  was  a  precocious  genius,  becoming  the 
bread-winner  of  his  family  before  he  was  into  his  teens.  At  the 
age  of  ten  he  set  up  as  a  por- 
trait painter  at  Oxford,  moved 
soon  afterward  to  Bath,  and, 
in  his  eighteenth  year,  estab- 
lished himself  in  London.  His 
success  was  unbroken  through- 
out life.  In  1791  he  was 
elected  an  A.R.A.  although 
under  the  statutory  age  ;  in 
1794  he  became  an  R.A., 
and  in  1820  P.R.A.,  having 
received  the  accolade  five 
years  previously.  He  died  in 
1830. 

With  regard  to  the  national  collections,  the  same  unhappy  story 
has  to  be  told  about  him  as  about  so  many  other  English  masters. 
He  is  quite  inadequately  represented  in  our  public  museums.  The 
National  Gallery  has  one  good  specimen  in  the  half  length  of  John 
Julius  Angerstein  (Fig.  366),  whose  collection  formed  the  nucleus  of 
the  gallery.  The  Portrait  Gallery  is  richer  ;  there,  among  some 
two  dozen  examples,  you  will  find  three  or  four — Warren  Hastings, 
Thomas  Campbell,  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  Wilherforce — showing 
his  power  of  head-painting  at  its  best.  But  we  have  to  go  to 
Windsor  and  to  private  collections  to  learn  the  full  extent  of  his 
powers.  The  following  are  some  of  his  best  performances  :— 
Windsor  Castle:  Pope  Pius  VII  (Fig.  371),  Cardinal  Consalvi ; 
Duke  of  Abercorn's  collection :  Four  Portraits  of  Children,  in 
ovals;  Mrs.  Maguire  and  Arthur  Fitzjames ;  Eaiil  of  Durham: 
Master  Lambton ;  Duke  of  Sutherland :  Countess  Gower  and 
Child  and  Lady  Elizabeth  BelgraVe;  Earl  Grey's  collection  : 
Countess  Grey  and  Daughters ;  Sir  Thomas  Dyke  Acland's : 
Lady  Acland  and  Two  Sons;  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  Esq.:  Miss 
Farren  (Fig.  370  ;  the  full  length  picture,  formerly  in  the  possession 
of  Lord  Wilton)  ;  Lord  Annaly  :  Lady  Dover  and  Child  (Fig.  369)  ; 
Mr.  Moulton  Barrett  :  Miss  Mary  Moulton  Barrett  ("  Pinkie  ")  ; 
Earl  of  Jersey  :  The  Duke  of  Wellington  (half  length,  at  Middleton 
Park,  Oxfordshire) ;  and  Marquess  of  Londonderry  :  Viscount 
Castlereagh,  Viscountess  Castlereagh,  and  Charles,  Third  Marquess 
of  Londonderry,  in  Hussar  Uniform  (Londonderry  House). 

205 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    375. PEG    WOFFINGTON.       (POND.) 

National  Portrait  Gallery. 


Lawrence  was  the  connecting  link  between  the  splendor  of  Eng- 
lish  portraiture  in   the  second  half  of   the   eighteenth   century   and 

its  devitalization  in  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth.  It  is  difficult  to 
decide  how  far  he  was  cause  as 
well  as  illustration.  But  perhaps 
we  shall  be  doing  him  no  injustice 
if  we  say  that  his  example,  like 
that  of  greater  men  before  him, 
worked  nothing  but  harm.  His 
gift,  such  as  it  was,  was  un-English, 
and  in  the  average  English  imitator 
could  lead  to  little  but  affectation. 
Certain  it  is  that,  by  the  time  he 
was  nearing  the  end  of  his  career, 
all  freshness  and  vitality  had  died  out  of  portrait  painting  in  the 
English  capital,  not  to  be  revived  again  until  the  movement 
of  1 850  came  to  make  a  change. 

Side  by  side  with  the  portrait  painters,  two  other  sets  of  artists 
pursued  their  ideals,  with  very  different  success.  The  first  of 
these,  and  the  nobler,  according  to  most  theorizings  about  art, 
were  the  "  history "  painters.  In  noticing  the  strain  of  activity 
which  sprang  from  Rubens  and  his  Whitehall  ceiling,  I  mentioned 
several  attempts  at  monumental  decoration  which  ended  in  some- 
thing short  of  complete  failure,  such  as  Barry's  decoration  in  the 
Society  of  Arts,  and  Runci- 
man's  work  at  Penicuik.  In 
1 773  a  proposal  was  made 
which  might  have  led  to 
something  very  curious 
indeed,  had  it  been  accepted. 
This  was  an  offer  on  the  part 
of  the  members  of  the  infant 
Royal  Academy  to  decorate 
the  interior  of  St.  Paul's :  to 
carry  on,  in  fact,  the  work 
begun  by  Sir  James  Thorn- 
hill.  This  offer,  although 
made  in  very  generous  terms, 
was  refused.  And  we  can  hardly  regret  the  refusal.  St.  Paul's 
was  scarcely  a  corpus  vile  on  which  to  make  a  hazardous  experi- 
ment.    It  was  much  safer  to  let  the  artists  try  their  hands  on  under- 

206 


FIG.    376. SEAPIECE.       (BROOKING.) 

Col.  Hutcheson  Poc,  C.B. 


PAINTING-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


takings  such  as  those  of  the  pubUsher,  Boydell.  For  him  many  of 
the  best  known  painters  of  the  time  painted  a  series  of  pictures  from 
Shakespeare,  which  were  exhibited.  Reynolds,  Romney,  West, 
Opie,  Northcote,  Stothard,  Fuseli,  Smirke,  Hamihon,  Westall,  and 
Barry  were  among  the  contributors.  Boydell's  *'  Shakespeare"  was 
followed  by  Macklin's  "  Bible  "  and  Fuseli's  "  Milton."  But  all 
these  adventures  ended  in  artistic  failure  and  did  not  even 
encourage  further  experiments  in  the  same  direction.  Another 
influence  which  worked  for  evil  in  English  "  history  "  painting  was 
the  teaching  of  Sir  Joshua.  In  his  own  hands  the  historical  spirit 
often  led  to  fine  results,  but  the  chief  effect  the  "Discourses  "  would 
have  on  a  young  painter  who  wished  to  venture  on  the  grand 
style  would  be  to  destroy  his  individuality  and  deprive  his  art  of 
character. 

Almost  the  only  man  to  stand  up 
against  the  mistaken  spirit  of  the  time, 
(and  to  paint  history  with  an  accept- 
able combination  of  veracity  and 
style,  was  John  Singleton  Copley, 
whose  Death  of  Chatham  and 
Death  of  Major  Pierson  (National 
Gallery,  Fig.  373)  are  very  good 
works  in  their  way.  Copley  was 
born  in  1737,  in  Boston,  U.  S.  A., 
of  an  English  father  and  Irish 
mother.  He  came  to  England  in 
1775,  and  here  passed  the  rest  of 
his  life,  dying  in  1815  at  the  age  of 
78.  He  was  the  father  of  Lord 
Lyndhurst.  Opie,  too,  occasion- 
ally did  fairly  well  in  the  same 
genre.  His  Murder  of  Riccio,  in  the  Guildhall,  London,  has 
at  least  vigor. 

The  only  painter  of  religious  pictures  at  this  time  who  need  be 
alluded  to  was  Benjamin  West.  Beginning,  like  Romney,  with  a 
picture  in  which  the  Death  of  Wolfe  was  represented  in  a 
common-sense  way,  with  English  soldiers  dressed  in  modern  uniforms 
instead  of  Roman  togas,  West  rapidly  won  the  admiration  and 
patronage  of  George  III.  This  sufficed  him  for  the  remainder 
of  his  life,  but  he  supplemented  his  earnings  from  the  Royal  purse  by 
painting  portraits  and  occasionally  decorative  panels  for  private 
individuals.     Some  of  these  latter  works  are  more  pleasing  than  the 

207 


FIG.    377. — J.    p.   CURRAN.      (HUGH 

HAMILTON.)      National  Gallery, 
Dublin. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

ambitious  canvases  painted  for  the  King.  West  was  born  in 
Pennsylvania  in  1 738.  He  came  to  England  in  1 763  and  spent 
the  rest  of  his  hfe  in  London.  He  was  an  original  member  of  the 
Royal  Academy  and  became  President  at  Sir  Joshua's  death  in 
1792.     He  died  in  1820. 

The  one  man  who  endeavored  to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  Benjamin 
West  was  Benjamin  Robert  Haydon  (1  786-1846).  He  attempted,  to 
his  own  hurt,  to  put  in  action  some  of  the  theories  of  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds, those  theories  with  which  the  President  had  tried  to  justify  his 
own  praise  of  what  he  called  the  Great  Style  in  art.  Haydon  failed 
egregiously,  and  yet  he  was  a  man  of  ability  in  his  own  way.  His 
journals  and  autobiography  are  of  poignant  interest.  But  he  was 
without  the  special  gifts  required  for  success  in  his  chosen  walk,  and 
so  his  life  moved  through  one  disappointment  after  another  to  a 
tragic  close.  One  of  his  best  pictures  hangs  in  a  restaurant  under 
Charing  Cross  Station. 


For  Bibliography  see  end  of  Chapter  XVI. 


FIG.    378. — PANEL   FOR   CEILING.      (WEST.) 

Burlington  House. 


208 


HHHiOL 

1 

■■ 

■rii 

L' 

1  / 

^J 

^^H 

1 

HP^" 

jhI 

^^^E 

m 

FIG.  379. — ULYSSES  AND  POLYPHEMUS.     (TURNER.)     National  Gallery. 

CHAPTER  XV 
MODERN  PAINTING- TURNER  TO  WATTS 

The  only  form  of  landscape  painting  which  was  really  encouraged 
in  the  eighteenth  century  was  the  topographical.  Portraits  of 
houses  and  parks  were  produced  in  great  numbers  and  fill  the 
country  houses  to  this  day.  This  form  of  art  was  followed  by 
one  painter  of  capacity,  whose  works  show  that  under  more 
favorable  conditions  he  might  have  conquered  a  respectable  place  in 
our  school.  This  was  John  Wootton,  a  pupil  of  Jan  Wyck.  He  is 
said  to  have  been  born  in 
1668;  he  died  in  1765. 
He  painted  animals,  chiefly 
race-horses,  and  topographical 
landscapes  in  a  style  recalling 
Caspar  Poussin  and  his  fol- 
lowers. Wootton's  best  works 
are  excellent.  Among  the 
best  are  a  series  in  the  outer 
hall  at  Althorp.  Many  other 
respectable  delineators  of  fact     ^^^  38o.-chapel  fields,  Norwich,    (crome.) 

flourished    durmg    the    century,  National  Gallery. 

209  .  P 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


U^^ 


FIG.    381. — PORINGLAND    OAK.       (CROME.) 

Rev.  C.  J.  Steward. 


the  most  satisfactory,  perhaps, 
being  the  Malton  family,  who 
enriched  architectural  perspec- 
tives with  pictorial  quality,  with 
no  little  success.  But  land- 
scape in  the  more  orthodox 
sense  was  utterly  neglected. 
Wilson  contrived  to  make  the 
income  of  a  bricklayer  by 
hawking  his  pictures  about  like 
boot-laces  ;  but  Gainsborough 
scarcely  ever  sold  a  landscape, 
although  they  covered  every 
wall  in  his  house,  and  his 
patrons  passed  them  daily  on 
their  way  to  his  sitters'  chair. 
But  a  fashion  arose  in  the 
country  which  came  to  the 
rescue  of  the  landscape  painters. 
This  was  the  custom,  which  has  persisted  ever  since,  of  including 
drawing  lessons  in  the  curriculum  of  a  polite  education.  Our 
national  school  of  water-color  painters  sprang  entirely  from  this 
custom,  and  not  a  few  of  our  oil  painters  owed  their  "  take  off  "  to 
it  also  :  among  the  latter,  one  of  the  most  gifted  of  them  all. 

The  second  generation  of  English  landscape  painters,  the 
generation  which  corresponded  to  that  of  Raeburn,  Hoppner,  and 
Lawrence,  among  her  portrait  painters,  began  with  the  birth,  at  the 
end  of  the  third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  of  three  men  of 

genius.  The  first  to  ap- 
pear was  John  Crome, 
commonly  called  0 1  d 
Crome,  who  was  born  at 
Norwich  in  1769.  He 
began  life  as  a  coach- 
painter,  but  soon  forsook 
that  metier  to  become  a 
drawing  master  and  land- 
scape painter.  He  died 
at  Norwich  in  182L 
His  work  united  three 
invaluable  characteristics  : 
it  was  based  on  excellent 


FIG.    382 


MODERN  PAINTING  FROM  TURNER  TO  WATTS 


models,  it  was  refreshed  and 
purified  by  continual  reference 
to  nature,  it  was  inspired  by 
sincere  personal  emotions  and 
affections.  The  influence  of 
Hobbema  and  other  Dutchmen 
of  the  seventeenth  century  is 
as  obvious  as  that  of  Wilson 
and  Gainsborough,  but  nature 
breathes  through  all  that  Crome 
did,    and    his     pictures    have   ^^'^'-  383— garden  of  the  hesperides.  (turner.) 

.     •      r    •  1      1-.  IT  National  Gallery. 

great   mdividuality.      He   was 

various  for  a  landscape  painter.  Some  of  his  works  are  as  broad 
and  "  large  "  as  those  of  Philip  de  Koninck,  others  carry  what  Ruskin 
called  the  niggling  of  Hobbema  to  an  extreme.  He  is  fairly  well 
represented  in  the  national  collections.  Slate  Quarries  and  Mouse- 
hold  Heath,  in  the  National  Gallery  ;  Mousehold  Heath,  in  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  and  a  Landscape,  in  the  Tate  Gallery, 
show  different  sides  of  his  art.  Another  fine  picture  is  The  Poring- 
land  Oak  (f^^S*  ^^0>  ^^  the  Rev.  C.  J.  Steward's  collection,  and  a 
magnificent  Moonlight  was  lent  to  the  Franco-British  exhibition  by 
Mr.  Darell  Brown.  Crome  was  the  founder  of  the  Norwich  School  of 
Painting,  which  will,  presently,  have  to  be  noticed  at  greater  length. 
Six  years  later  than  Crome,  Joseph  Mallord  William  Turner, 
the  son  of  a  barber,  was  born  in  Maiden  Lane,  Covent  Garden. 
\  His  birth  took  place  on  the  23rd  of  April,  St.  George's  day,  a  fact 
in  which  Ruskin  used  to  take  peculiar  pleasure.  His  boyhood  was 
passed  in  various  home  employments  connected  more  or  less  closely 
with  art,  and  in  1  789  he 
'intered  as  student  of  the 
Royal  Academy.  Ten 
years  later  he  became  an 
associate  of  the  same 
body,  and  in  1802  a 
full  member.  He  trav- 
elled over  a  large  part 
of  Western  Europe  in 
the  course  of  his  career. 
He  painted  in  water 
color  and  in  oil,  he 
etched  and  mezzotinted, 
and,  in  short,  led  a  nriore 


FIG.    384. — SPITHEAD. 

211 


(turner.) 


National  Gallery. 

P  2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  385. — STORM,     (turner.)    Tate  Gallery, 


Strenuous  and  universal  art 
life  than  any  other  English 
painter  :  and  he  died  rich. 

The  career  of  Turner  was 
on  such  a  scale  that  it  is 
difficult  to  fit  it  into  a  hand- 
book at  all.  He  left  a  greater 
mass  of  work  behind  him 
than  any  other  artist,  before 
or  since,  for  everything  he 
did  was  done  with  his  own 
hand,  without  help  and  al- 
most in  secrecy.  So  entire 
was  his  devotion  to  his  own  imaginative,  and  yet  objective,  form 
of  aesthetic  activity,  that  in  time  it  became  his  only  vehicle  of 
expression,  and  practically  his 
one  link  with  the  world.  His 
career  has  been  divided, 
not  unreasonably,  into  three 
periods:  a  period  of  literal, 
almost  topographical,  work 
from  nature  ;  a  period  of  ex- 
periment with  the  styles  of 
other  men  ;  and  a  period  of 
free  self-expression,  ending 
with  a  few  years  of  chaos 
through  which  splendid  gleams 
of  imagination  strike  now  and 
then  like  lightning  through  a  cloud.  All  these  periods,  but  espe- 
cially the  two  latter,  may  be  well  studied  in  the  collection  he  left 

to  the  nation.  This  collec- 
tion consists  of  about  one 
hundred  finished  oil  pictures 
and  many  in  various  stages 
of  incompleteness.  Among 
these  latter  are  the  splendid 
dreamlike  landscapes,  carried 
as  far  as  the  palette  knife 
would  take  them,  which 
now  hang  in  the  Tate  Gal- 
lery. Besides  work  in  oil, 
the     bequest    enriched     the 


FIG.    386. — SOL  DI   VENEZIA.      (TURNER.) 

National  Gallery. 


FIG.    387. — GIUDECCA.      (TURNER.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


212 


MODERN    PAINTING    FROM    TURNER    TO    WATTS 


nation  with  some  nineteen  thousand  drawings,  varying  from  water 
color  pictures,  in  which  all  the  resources  of  that  medium  are 
brought  into  play,  to  the  slightest  and  most  rapid  sketches.  From 
such  a  mass  of  work  it  is  difficult  to   select  a  few  examples   to 


FIG.  388. — THE  VALLEY  FARM.     (CONSTABLE.)     National  Gallery. 

stand  for  the  whole,  but  perhaps  the  following  may  be  considered 
fairly  representative : — Kilgarran  Castle  (Lord  Armstrong),  Con- 
Way  Castle  (Duke  of  Westminster),  Fishermen  on  a  Lee  Shore 
(Lord     Iveagh),      Walton    Bridges    (Lady    Wantage),    Crossing 

213 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    389. SKETCH    FOR    THE    LEAPING    HORSE. 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


(constable.) 


the  Brook 
(National  Gal- 
1  e  r  y  ),  Spit- 
head:  boat's 
crew  recover- 
ing an  anchor 
(ditto),  Mer- 
cury and 
Herse  (Lord 
Swaythling), 
A  Fro  s  t  y 
Morning 
(National 
Gallery), 
Th  e  Deluge 
(Mr.  Darell 
Brown),  Rock- 
ets and  Blue  Lights  (Yerkes  Collection),  Burial  of  Wilkie  (National 
Gallery),  The  Fighting  Temeraire  (ditto),  Ulysses  deriding  Poly- 
phemus (ditto).  The  "Sun  of  Venice"  going  to  Sea  (ditto),  and 
Rain,  Steam,  and  Speed:  the  Great  Western  Railway  (ditto). 
We  shall  have  to  return  to  Turner  in  future  sections. 
John  Constable,   who,   with   Crome   and  Turner,   completes  our 

triumvirate,  was  born  at  East  Berg- 
holt,  Suffolk,  in  1776.  His  father 
was  a  wind-miller,  and  Constable 
himself  began  life  in  the  same  em- 
ployment. But  he  soon  quitted  it 
and,  at  the  comparatively  late  age 
of  twenty-four,  became  a  student  at 
the  Royal  Academy.  In  1816  he 
married  a  wife  with  "  prospects," 
which  were  fulfilled.  He  became 
an  A.R.A.  in  1819,  an  R.A.  in 
1829,  and  died  in  1837. 

The  personal  character  of  Con- 
stable counts  for  more,  perhaps,  in 
the  history  of  modern  painting  than 
any  other  single  force  which  could  be 
named.  It  showed  a  combination  at 
once  rare,  and  yet  necessary  for  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  In 
him  the  instinctive,  irrepressible,  and  yet  only  half-conscious  desire 

214 


fig.  390. — cottage  in  cornfield. 

(constable.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


MODERN    PAINTING    FROM    TURNER    TO    WATTS 


FIG.  391. — SKETCH  FOR  THE  HAY  WAIN.     (CONSTABLE.)     Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

for  aesthetic  expression  was  combined  with  an  intense  love  for  the 
simple  forms  of  nature  to  which  he  was  accustomed,  and  with 
a  self-reliant  stubbornness  of  will  which  made  him  unpopular  as  a 
man,  but  saved  him  from  disaster  as  an  artist.  He  "  loved  every 
stump,  and  stile,  and  lane  in  the  village,"  but  he  could  not  paint 
without  exercising  the  finest  gift  of  objective  selection  landscape  painter 
ever  had,  and  he  never  felt  the  slightest  temptation  to  bow  to  idols 
which  were  not  his  own.  "I 
imagine  myself  to  be  driving 
a  nail,"  he  said  ;  "  I  have 
driven  it  some  way,  and 
by  persevering  I  may  drive 
it  home  ;  by  quitting  it  to 
attack  others,  though  I  may 
be  amusing  myself,  I  do  not 
advance  .  .  .  while  my  par- 
ticular nail  stands  still."  His 
career  was  not  adventurous. 
He  sold  a  certain  percent- 
age of  his  landscapes  ;  he 
occasionally  painted  portraits  ;  he  had  a  few  understanding  clients 
who  not  only  enabled  him  to  add  to  the  income  derived  from  his 

215 


FIG.    392. — VALLEY   OF  THE   YARE.      (STARK.) 

National  Gallery. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    393. — LANDSCAPE   WITH   WINDMILL. 

(stark.)     Mrs.  Joseph. 


own  and  his  wife's  modest  fortunes,  but  also  encouraged  him  with 
their  sympathy.     One  of  these,  the  Rev.  John  Fisher,  archdeacon 

of  Salisbury,  may  fairly  be  called 
his  earliest  appreciator.  Perhaps 
the  most  gratifying  incident  in  his 
life  was  the  admiration  excited 
by  certain  pictures  of  his  when 
exhibited  in  France,  at  the  Salon 
in  1824,  and  at  Lille  in  1825. 
To  these  opportunities  for  seeing 
his  work  much  of  the  character 
of  modern  French  landscape  has 
been  justly  traced. 

Constable's  art  has  always  been 
the  subject  of  violent,  even 
acrimonious,  discussion.  Some 
have  brought  against  it  the  absurd 
accusation  of  being  too  literal  and 
imitative.  Such  a  picture  as  the 
Cornfield,  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery, with  its  marvellous  combina- 
tion of  objective  truth  and  aesthetic  unity,  requires  a  finer  instinct  for 
selection,  for  seizing  upon  the  things  which  tell,  and  neglecting 
those  which  do  not,  and  for  design,  both  at  large  and  in  detail,  than 
anything  carried  out  on  more  idealistic  lines.  The  assertion,  which 
was  also  made,  that  he  could 
not  draw,  was  equally  ab- 
surd. To  make  out  form, 
in  detail,  was  no  part  of  his 
object  in  his  pictures.  To 
form,  at  large,  they  are  mar- 
vellously true,  giving  the 
shape,  modelling,  and  extent 
of  the  ground  and  the  objects 
it  bears  with  unfailing  truth. 
Even  in  the  smallest  kind  of 
drawing.  Constable  was  a 
master,  as  those  who  are 
familiar  with  his  pencil 
drawings  and  his  few  por- 
traits know.  In  short,  he  was  a  very  great  artist,  even  when 
divorced  from  his  context,  while  as  a  figure  in  the  vision  of  nine- 

216 


FIG.    394. — GREENWICH.      (viNCENT.) 

Sir  Cuthbert  Quilter,  Bart. 


MODERN    PAINTING    FROM    TURNER    TO    WATTS 


FIG.    395. — SHIPPING    AT   MOUTH    OF    THAMES. 

(coTMAN.)     Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


teenth  century  painting  he  stands  out  as  the  greatest  liberator, 
inventor,  and  creator  of  them  all. 

Like  Turner,  but  unlike  most  of  the  better  English  painters. 
Constable  is  well  represented  in  our  public  collections.  The 
National  Gallery  has  three  fine 
pictures  of  his  maturity  in  the 
Cornfield,  The  Hay  Wain, 
and  The  Valley  Farm  (Fig. 
388),  besides  a  crowd  of  less 
important  things.  The  Diploma 
Gallery  at  Burlington  House 
has  the  Jumping  Horse,  of 
which  a  superb  palette  knife 
sketch  is  at  South  Kensington 
(Fig.  389),  together  with  an- 
other, equally  fine,  of  the  Hay 
Wain  (Fig.  391).  Besides 
these     the     Museum     owns     a 

collection  of  about  500  pictures  and  sketches  in  oil,  water  color, 
and  "  black  and  white,"  nearly  all  bequeathed  by  the  painter's 
daughter,  Miss  Isabel  Constable. 

With  the  flowering  of  Turner  and  Constable  the  fountain  of 
vital  sap  which  began  to  rush  up  the  stem  of  British  art  in  the 
fourth  or  fifth  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century  lost  its  vigor, 
and  painting,  for  a  time,  became  a  matter  of  routine,  expressing 
shallow  emotions  and  appealing  to  shallow  admirations.  There 
were  exceptions,  of  course,  over  and  above  those  afforded  by 
Turner  and  Constable  themselves  ;  but  in  a  general  way  the 
spirit  of  English  painting, 
between  the  Peace  of 
1815  and  the  1851 
Exhibition,  was  utterly  pa- 
rochial. 

The  chief  exceptions 
to  this  generalization  were 
supplied  by  the  Norwich 
School,  by  the  School 
of  Water-Color  Painters, 
and  by  one  individual 
artist. 

The    Norwich      School  fig.  396.-chatkau  of  the  duchesse  de  berri. 

,  ,  .  '  (bonington.)     Mrs.  Joseph. 

gives    the    best    instance   to 

217 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    397. — THE   STABLE.      (mORLAND.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


be    found    in    English    art,    until    quite    recent    years,    of    a    body 
of    men    working    on    common    lines    and    in    the    tradition    of   a 

common  master.     The   Eng- 
lish character  does  not  readily 
adapt  itself  to  such  a  system. 
It  is  at  once  too  individualistic 
— "every    Englishman    is    an 
island!" — and    too    eager    to 
reach  results.     The  effect  of 
the  latter  characteristic  is  that 
English  artists  have  been  less 
thoroughly  grounded  in  their 
metier  than  their  continental 
rivals,  and  therefore  both  less 
able  and  less  ready  to  teach. 
Within  the  last  twenty  years 
a    change    has    taken    place. 
We  have  learnt  from  the  ex- 
ample of  the  French.      Our 
painters  have  shown   a  new 
tendency   to  fall   into   groups 
round   a   central    figure:    and 
they   have   certainly   become 
much  better  workmen.     The 
Norwich  School  was  distin- 
guished by  a  common  prac- 
tice, rather  than  by  anythim 
that  could  fairly  be  calle 
a     principle.      It    was    a 
school  exclusively  of  land- 
scape,       accepting       the 
nature    to    which    it   was 
most    accustomed     as    its 
subject,     painting    simply 
and      solidly,     composing 
with  care  and   some  arti- 
ficiality,   never    forgetting 
that     a     picture,    to     be 
framed  and    hung  up    in 
an    English    middle-class 
home,   was    the   thing   in 
making.        The    more 


FIG.    398. AI.DERNEY   CATTLE. 

Tate  Gallery. 


(ward.) 


1 

FIG.    399. — SUSPENSE.      (lANDSEER.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


218 


MODERN  PAINTING  FROM  TURNER  TO  WATTS 


FIG.    400. — WAR.      (lANDSEER.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


important  members,  after  Old  Crome  himself,  were  the  Ladbrookes : 
Robert  Ladbrooke  (1770-1842),  the  father,  Henry  (1800-1870), 
and  John  Bernay  (1803- 
1879),  the  two  sons;  John 
Bernay  Crome,  "  Young 
Crome  "(1793-1842),  whose 
best  works  are  much  better 
than  his  reputation  would  lead 
one  to  expect  ;  James  Stark 
(1794-1859);  Joseph  Stan- 
nard  (1797-1830);  George 
Vincent  (1  796-?  1830);  and 
a  man  of  real  genius,  John  Sell 
Cotman(?  1782-1842).  Few 
of  the  better  works  of  these 
men  have  made  their  way  into  our  public  collections.  Stark,  alone, 
is  represented  in  the  National  Gallery  by  a  picture  showing  him 
nearly  at  his  best.  George  Vincent's  best  work  is  a  famous  Green- 
wich Hospital,  from  the  Thames  (Fig.  394),  which  he  painted  more 
than  once.  As  for  Cotman,  his  oil  pictures  present  great  difficulties  to 
the  connoisseur.  His  works — or  those  ascribed  to  him — vary  greatly 
in  style  and  manner,  and  offer  a  promising  arena  to  the  scientific  picture 
sorter.  His  water  colors  and  designs  in  black  and  white  are  more 
homogeneous.  The  latter,  especially, 
show  a  pictorial  imagination  of  the 
highest  kind.  To  the  present  writer 
it  seems  not  too  much  to  say  that  such 
designs  as  Turning  the  Sod  (Fig. 
5 10)  and  The  Centaur  (Fig.  51  l)in 
the  British  Museum  Print  Room  have 
more  imagination  and  a  finer  aesthetic 
unity  than  anything  in  Turner's  Liber 
Studiorum.  Cotman  was  also  a  re- 
markable etcher  and  draughtsman  of 
architecture.  In  spite  of  the  enhanced 
reputation  he  has  lately  begun  to 
enjoy,  his  name  is  still  below  the 
place  it  ought  to  hold  in  the  history 
of  modern  art. 

A  small  category  of  painters  who 
do  not  fit  into  any  of  the  groups  al- 
ready discussed  must  now  be  noticed. 

219 


—CRUCIFIXION.      (ETTY.) 

Mr.  F.  Sidney. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   402. — BATHER.      (eTTY.) 

Tate  Gallery. 


I  mean  the  animal  painters.  They 
do  not  come  readily  under  other 
heads,  because  they  had,  as  a 
class,  a  quite  distinct  origin.  The 
English  love  of  country  pursuits 
led  early  to  the  existence  of  a 
set  of  men  whose  business  it  was 
to  illustrate  sports,  paint  the  por- 
traits of  foxhounds,  racehorses, 
and  so  on.  Now  and  again  one 
of  these  men  would  develop  more 
talent  than  the  rest  and  earn  the 
right  to  be  considered  an  artist. 
Wootton,  already  mentioned  as  a 
landscape  painter  (see  p.  209), 
was  one  of  these  ;  another  was 
the  excellent  George  Stubbs 
(1724-1806),  who  painted  his 
own  type  of  horse  with  remark- 
able skill  and  soundness  ;  a  third  was  the  great  George  Morland 
(1763-1803),  who  became  at  once  a  delightful  artist  and  one  of 
the  most  consummate  painters  of  modern  times.  Morland's  breeding 
was  essentially  artistic.  His  grandfather,  George  Henry  Morland 
(d.  1789),  was  not  a  bad  painter,  if  the  small  picture  ascribed  to 
him  in  the  Glasgow  Gallery  {The  Oyster  Seller)  is  really  by  him  ; 
his  father,  Henry  Robert  Modand  (1 730  (?)-l  797),  was  a  very 
good  artist  indeed  ;  while  his 
mother,  Maria,  at  least  exhibited 
at  the  R.A.  George  was  an 
improvement  on  his  father  both  as 
a  painter  and  as  a  citizen,  much 
as  he  left  to  be  desired  in  the 
latter  respect.  For  Henry  Mor- 
land prostituted  his  talent  to 
some  undignified  uses,  a  tempta- 
tion resisted  by  the  son  even  when 
things  were  at  their  worst.  And 
things  were  bad  with  him  nearly 
all  through  his  career.  His  dis- 
sipations were  probably  less  severe 
than  has  been  asserted,  but  he 
always  spent  more  than  he  had, 

220 


IIG.    403. THE    REFUSAL.       (WILKIE.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


MODERN  PAINTING  FROM  TURNER  TO  WATTS 


FIG.    404. THE    SONNET.       (mULREADY.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


and  so  was  never  free  from  the 
stress  of  his  creditors  and  of  those 
who  knew  how  to  find  a  harvest 
in  his  difficulties.  He  painted  a 
large  number  of  pictures,  for  he 
had  extraordinary  facihty  of  in- 
vention and  execution.  Techni- 
cally, his  work  has  seldom  been 
surpassed,  and  it  also  shows  that 
he  was  endowed  with  an  extraor- 
dinary feeling  for  beauty  and 
artistic  unity.  It  is  difficult  to  say 
whether  he  excelled  most  as  a 
genre  or  as  an  animal  painter. 
Masterpieces  in  the  former  class 
are  the  Lavinia  series,  the  Visit 
to  the  Child  at  Nurse,  and  Black 
Monday:  in  the  latter,  the  Interior  of  a  Stable  (National  Gallery), 
and  A  Stable  (Fig.  397 ;  V.  and  A.  Museum). 

Morland's  brother-in-law,  James  Ward  (1769-1859),  was  a  fine 
artist  in  the  same  genre,  although  in  a  very  different  style.  His 
manner  is  personal  to  an  extreme  degree,  and  only  becomes  quite 
acceptable  in  his  larger  pictures.  Harlech  Castle,  in  the  National 
collection ;  two  huge  canvases  in  the  Tate  Gallery,  A  Iderney  Bull, 
Cow,  and  Calf  in  a  Landscape  (Fig.  398)  and  Gordale  Scar, 
Yorkshire;  and  5/.  Donat's  Castle,  with  Bulls  Fishtins,  in  the  V. 
and  A.  Museum,  show  him  at  his  best.  To  James  Ward  belongs  the 
honor,  such  as  it  is,  of  having  influenced  the  first  steps  in   animal 

painting  of  Sir  Edwin  Land- 
seer.  Landseer  (1802-1873) 
was  for  many  years  the  prime 
favorite  of  those  English 
people  who  were  fond  of 
pictures  but  ignorant  of  art. 
His  humanization  of  animals 
appealed  to  them,  his  shallow- 
ness did  not  shock  them,  while 
they  were  unable  to  appreciate 
the  poverty  of  his  color  and 
the  emptiness  of  his  facility. 
So  during  his  lifetime  he  en- 
joyed a  popularity  reached  by 


FIG.    405. — COTTAGE   IN   HYfcE   PARK. 

(nasmyth.)    Tate  Gallery. 


221 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    406. TAMING    OF    A    SHREW.       (LESLIE.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


few.     His  best  pictures,  perhaps,  are  still  in  private  hands,  the  Death 
of  the  Otter,  for  instance.     But  he  is  more  than   sufficiently   well 

represented  in  the  National 
Gallery  and  in  the  Victoria 
and  Albert  Museum. 

The  early  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  saw  the 
activity  of  a  considerable 
number  of  painters  of  more 
or  less  agreeable  talent  and 
of  real  sincerity  in  David 
Wilkie(  1785- 1841),  Patrick 
Nasmyth  (1786-1831), 
William  Dyce(  1806- 1864). 
and  John  Phillip  (1817- 
1867),  all  Scots;  the  Irish- 
man, William  Mulready  (1  786-1863),  the  Anglo-Americans,  Charles 
Robert  Leslie  (1794-1859),  and  Gilbert  Stuart  Newton  (1795- 
1835);  and  the  Englishmen,  Augustus  Wall  Callcott  (1  779-1844), 
Wiiliam  Etty  (1787-1849),  and  George  Lance  (1802-1864). 

Etty,  in  a  sense,  may  be  called  the  most  unlucky  of  artists  ;   for  he 
was  endowed  by  nature  with  two  gifts  :    one  for  painting  the  nude 

human  animal,  the  other  for  that 
larger  domesticity  which  means  love 
for  one's  own  surroundings  and  place 
of  origin  ;  and  the  two  had  the  worst 
effect  on  each  other.  If  Etty  could 
have  transferred  himself  in  youth  to 
some  centre  where  his  own  particular 
genius  could  have  developed  fully  and 
been  warmly  welcomed,  he  might  have 
become  a  leader  in  art.  As  it  was, 
he  had  to  pass  his  life  in  shadow,  to 
see  his  work  and  himself  misunder- 
stood, and  to  be  almost  forgotten  when 
he  died.  His  pictures  are  most  un- 
equal, ranging  from  chalky,  cold,  and 
even  meaningless  combinations  of  gaudy 
color  to  renderings  of  human  beauty, 
in  which  realism  and  style  are  united 
with  extraordinary  felicity.  Titian,  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  had  mag- 
nificent conventions  for  flesh  ;    Etty,  at  his  best,  gives  you  the  real, 

222 


FIG.    407. UNCLE    TOBY    AND 

WIDOW    WADMAN.        (LESLIE.) 

National  Gallery. 


MODERN  PAINTING  FROM  TURNER  TO  WATTS 


FIG.   408.— I.ES   TEMMES   SAVANTES. 
(LESLIE.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


glowing,  palpable  thing  itself.  He  is  fairly  well  seen  in  our  public 
collections  :  Youth  at  the  Prow  and  Pleasure  at  the  Helm,  and 
The  Bather  (Fig.  402),  in  the  National 
Gallery ;  Cupid  and  Psyche,  at  South 
Kensington  ;  The  Storm,  in  the  Man- 
chester Gallery,  and  a  series  of  heroic 
subjects  in  the  Edinburgh  National 
Gallery,  are  among  his  better  things. 
But  the  best  examples  I  know  in  the 
ownership  of  any  public  body  are  a 
triple  study  of  the  nude,  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum,  New  York,  and  a 
quasi-copy  after  a  Titian  Venus  in  the 
Royal  Scottish  Academy. 

The  men  of  talent  were  infinitely 
more  successful  m  a  worldly  sense. 
Wilkie  was  a  child  of  fortune  all  his 
life.  His  first  mishap  was  the  loss  of 
health  from  which,  eventually,  he  died. 
His    best    things   show    a   rare  faculty 

for  building  works  of  real,  though  modest,  originality  on  the  example  of 
an  alien  school  and  different  age.  The  best  pictures  by  him  accessible 
to  the  public  are  The  Blind  Fiddler  and  The  Village  Fair,  in  the 
National  Gallery,  the  sketch  for  Blind  Man's  Buff,  in  the  Tate 
Gallery,  Boys  digging  for  Rats,  in  the  Diploma  Gallery,  Burling- 
ton House,  and  The  Refusal  (Fig.  403),  at  South  Kensington; 
but  the  unfinished,  indeed  the  scarcely  commenced,  Knox  dis- 
pensing the  Sacrament  at  Calder 
House,  in  the  National  Gallery  of 
Scotland,  has  great  charm,  promis- 
ing more,  perhaps,  than  the  finished 
picture  would  have  performed.  A 
Bathsheha,  owned  by  Mrs.  Naylor, 
of  Leigh  ton  Hall,  Welshpool,  is 
perhaps  the  best  of  his  efforts  out- 
side his  own  proper  field.  The 
Reading  of  a  Will,  at  Munich, 
has  been  entirely  destroyed  by  re- 
painting. Patrick  Nasmyth's  land- 
scapes, in  a  manner  based  on  Hob- 
bema,  have  always  been  popular  with  the  lovers  of  minute  finish. 
Several  good  examples  are  in  the  National  Gallery.     William  Dyce 

223 


riG.    409. — FRUIT.       (lance.) 

National  Gallery. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    410. — THE    READER.       (t.    S.    GOOD.) 

Tate  Gallery. 


has  earned  fame  by  his  wall 
pictures  in  the  King's  Robing 
Room  at  Westminster,  which 
are  very  good  indeed  in  view 
of  the  conditions  of  his  time. 
John  Phillip  was  a  native  of 
Aberdeen.  He  received  his  art 
education  in  the  R.A.,  and  began 
his  career  by  painting  scenes  of 
humble  Scottish  life.  In  1846 
he  went  to  Spain,  was  at  once 
captivated  by  Velazquez,  and 
began  that  long  series  of  illustra- 
tions of  Spanish  life,  painted  often 
with  great  vivacity  and  breadth, 
and  in  fine  color,  which  earned 
him  the  sobriquet  of  "  Phillip  of 
Spain."  His  best  picture  is  prob- 
ably the  Spanish  IVake  or  "La  Gloria, "  in  the  Edinburgh  Gallery. 
Another  excellent  painter  who,  at  times,  treated  Spanish  life,  was 
F.  Y.  Hurlstone  (1880-1869),  by  whom  there  is  a  fine  picture  in 
the  Tate  Gallery.  It  is  fat  and  rich  in  impasto,  and  the  work  of  a 
true  colorist. 

William  Mulready  was  born  at  Ennis,  Co.  Clare,  in   1 786,  but 
came    to    London    while    still    a    boy    and    entered    the    Academy 

Schools  in  1800.  He  became 
both  A.R.A.  and  R.A.  in  the 
interval  between  the  exhibitions  of 
1815  and  1816.  He  was  a  slow 
and  most  painstaking  worker,  so 
his  pictures  are  scarce  outside  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum, 
which  owns  no  less  than  thirty- 
three.  The  two  best,  perhaps,  are 
The  Sonnet  (Fig.  404)  and  Choos- 
ing the  Wedding  Gown.  His  art  is 
spoilt  by  his  hot  and  gaudy  color. 
More  agreeable,  on  the  whole, 
is  the  gentle,  almost  feminine  art 
of  C.  R.  Leslie,  who  might  have 
been  a  very  acceptable  painter 
even  now,  if  he  had  not  embar- 
224 


FIG.    411. — BYRON.       (PHILLIPS.) 

From  Print. 


MODERN  PAINTING  FROM  TURNER  TO  WATTS 


FIG.    412. — HASTINGS.      (CHALON.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


rassed  himself  with  a  text. 
His  subjects  are  nearly  all 
taken  from  writers — Shake- 
speare, Moliere,  Cervantes, 
Sterne,  Le  Sage,  &c. — whose 
visions  are  seldom  on  all  fours 
with  those  of  pictorial  art. 
Leslie,  like  Mulready,  is  too 
well  represented  at  South 
Kensington,  where  twenty- 
four  of  his  pictures  have  found 
a  home.  Gilbert  Stuart  New- 
ton was  a  rarer  spirit,  but  his  mind  gave  way  at  a  comparatively 
early  age,  and  his  works  are  scarce.  Ahelard  is  in  the  Diploma 
Gallery  at  the  Royal  Academy;  Yorick  and  the  Grisette  in  the  Tate 
Gallery ;    Captain  Macheath  in  the  possession  of  Lord  Lansdowne. 

To  the  same  class  as  the  two  last  belongs  Augustus  Leopold  Egg, 
whose  works,  however,  betray  a  kind  of  ability  which  is  not  effective 
in  paint.  Well  drawn  and  intelligently  arranged,  they  have  no 
enveloppe  and  no  pictorial  motive.  Pretty  much  the  same  verdict  may 
be  passed  on  William  Collins,  with  whom  landscape  plays  as  large 
a  part  as  incident.  He  was  a  better  colorist  than  some,  but  was 
excelled  in  his  turn  by  the  still-life  painter,  George  Lance,  several 
of  whose  pictures  are  in  our  London  galleries  (Fig.  409). 

Callcott,  to  whom  the  foolish  name  of  "the  English  Claude"  was 
sometimes  given,  was  born  in  1  779, 
and,  like  Hoppner,  under  whom 
he  afterward  studied,  began  public 
life  as  a  chorister.  His  landscapes, 
which  are  much  better  as  a  rule 
than  his  subject  pictures,  betray  the 
study  of  Cuyp  as  well  as  Claude. 
He  is  not  well  represented  in  the 
national  collections;  his  master- 
piece, probably,  is  the  Mouth  of 
the  Tyne,  in  the  collection  of 
Lord  Ridley. 

Paul  Falconer  Poole,  a  native 
of  Bristol,  had  no  regular  educa- 
tion in  art.  But  he  early  won 
a  certam  measure  of  success,  and  /  s 

«     V.V.11U111     iiiv,«ouiv,     vyi      ouv,v-v-oc.,      uiiva  ^^^     ^^^  ^^^   PORTRAIT.       (jACKSON.) 

tor     many     years     was     the     chief  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

225  Q 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND   IRELAND 


English  painter  of  imaginative  subjects,   after  Watts.     He  is  repre- 
sented both  in  the  Tate  Gallery  and  at  South  Kensington. 

Contemporary  with  these  men 
were  a  number  of  portrait 
painters  to  whom  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  allude.  For  some 
reason  not  easy  to  trace,  the 
pictorial  treatment  of  portraiture 
almost  entirely  disappeared  be- 
tween the  death  of  Lawrence 
and  the  sudden  turning  of  Millais 
to  that  form  of  art.  Practically 
the  only  exception  to  the  uni- 
versal dulness  was  supplied  by 
Watts,  who  contrived  to  unite 
largeness  of  style  and  a  true 
no.  414.-COLLEONE  STATUE,  VENICE.  pictorial  imagination  to  the  more 

(J.  HOLLAND.)    Mrs.  Joseph.  objective    requirements   of    por- 

trait. Millais  thought  it  necessary 
to  make  excuses  when  he  took  to  portraiture,  so  low  had  its  reputation 
sunk.  Even  Watts,  who  contrived  to  give  it  so  much  dignity,  did 
his  best  to  avoid  it  during  the  first  half  of  his  life. 

George  Frederick  Watts  (1817-1904)  was  of  Welsh  extraction; 
and  both  in  art  and  character  showed  many  Celtic  traits.  His 
education  was  desultory.  He  worked  for  a  short  time  in  the 
Academy  schools,  and  haunted  the  studio  of  William  Behnes,  the 
sculptor ;  but  he  used  to  say  his  real  master  was  Phidias,  and  his 
real  school  the  Parthenon  marbles.  He  had  a  genius  for  friendship, 
and  painted  generation  after  generation  of  single  families.  In 
one  case  the  succession  ran  to  six  generations !  He  sent  in  a  picture, 
The  First  Naval  Victory  of  the  English,  to  the  Westminster  Hall 
competition  of  1847.  It  won  a  prize  of  £500,  was  bought  by  the 
Government,  and  now  hangs  in  a  committee  room  of  the  House  of 
Lords.  A  fresco  painted  in  the  same  building  has  disappeared,  but 
another,  in  the  great  hall  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  being  painted  on  a  more 
seasoned  wall,  has  had  better  fortune,  and  may  fairly  be  called 
the  finest  modern  wall  picture  in  this  country.  About  the  same 
time  he  began  the  great  series  of  allegorical  pictures  by  which, 
perhaps,  he  is  likely  to  be  best  remembered;  for  they  have  the 
almost  unique  merit,  among  allegories,  of  being  easily  understood 
as  well  as  fine  in  art.  A  few  years  later  his  other  series,  that  of 
portraits    of    famous    people,    was    commenced.     These    are    very 

226 


\ 


MODERN  PAINTING  FROM  TURNER  TO  WATTS 

unequal,  but  among  them  are  some  of  the  finest  heads  painted  by 
any  modern  master.  Lord  Stratford  de  Redclyffe  (National  Por- 
trait Gallery),  Russell  Gurney  (Fig.  418),  IValter  Crane  (Fig. 
451),  and  William  Morris  (National  Portrait  Gallery)  may  be 
named  among  the  best.  Some  of  his  time  was  given  to  sculpture, 
in  which  he  might  have  greatly  excelled  had  he  concentrated  his 
powers  on  that  form  of  art  (see  Chapter  XX).  Watts  died  in  Little 
Holland  House,  Kensington,  in  1904.  The  nation  is  rich  in 
his  pictures.  During  his  lifetime  he  gave  many  to  provincial  gal- 
leries, the  finest  presented  in  that  way,  perhaps,  being  the  Fata  Mor- 
gana, at  Leicester.  One  of  his  best  pictures.  Time,  Death,  and 
Judgment,  hangs  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  To  the  National  Por- 
trait Gallery  he  gave  a  series  of  thirty-one  portraits  of  celebrated 
people,  and  to  the  Tate  Gallery  twenty-three  pictures.  By  the 
Cosmopolitan  Club,  a  society  established  for  many  years  in  Charles 
Street,  Mayfair,  in  what  was  at  one  time  the  painter's  studio,  the 
Tate  Gallery  has  also  been  enriched  by  one  of  the  most  effective  of 
his  decorative  pictures,  a  huge  canvas,  dealing  with  the  Story  of 
Nostagio  degli  Onesti,  from  the  Decameron.  A  large  collection  of 
his  works  is  open  to  the  public  in  his  house,  Limnerslease,  near 
Compton,  in  Surrey. 

For  Bibliography,   see  end  of  Chapter  XVI. 


FIG.    415. CALISTO.       (rOTHWELL.) 

National  Gallery,  Dublin. 


227 


Q2 


FIG.   4l6.r— MISS   ALEXANDER.      (WHISTLER.) 

Mr.  Alexander. 


228 


FIG.    417. — HEARTS   ARE   TRUMPS.       (SIR    JOHN  MILLAIS,   BART.) 

Mrs.  J.  H.  Seeker. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

PAINTING-FROM  THE   PRE-RAPHAELITE 
REVOLT  TO  THE   PRESENT  DAY 


With  the  culmination  of  Watts,  the  history  of  British  art,  before 
the  outbreak  of  those  movements  which  affected  it  so  profoundly 
during  the  second  half  of  last  century,  comes  to  an  end.  Watts 
lived  on,  indeed,  until  the  twentieth  century  was  three  years  old, 
but  his  art  was  curiously  homogeneous,  and  in  all  its  ups  and 
downs  was  scarcely  affected  by  the  various  kinds  of  modernism, 
whether  in  revivals  or  new  experiments,  which  broke  out  around 
him. 

In  1848  seven  young  men  bound  themselves  together  in  a  society 
to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood. 
They  were  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  William  Holman  Hunt,  John 
Everett  Millais,  James  Collinson,  and   Frederick  George  Stephens, 

229 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   418.- 
(WATTS.) 


-RUSSELL   GURNEY  . 

National  Gallery. 


painters ;  Thomas  Woolner, 
sculptor;  and  William  Michael 
Rossetti,  writer.  Their  object 
was  to  break  with  the  empty 
conventionality  which  had  grad- 
ually dominated  English  art, 
substituting  for  it  real,  even  if 
primitive,  ideas,  and  the  sincere 
study  of  nature  down  to  her 
most  intimate  details.  The 
movement  was  at  first  received 
with  ridicule  and  violent  abuse, 
but  a 
for- 
mid- 
ab  le 
d  e  - 
fen- 
der 


arose  in  the  person  of  John  Ruskin, 
whose  eloquence  did  much  gradually  to 
win  respect  for  the  new  principles.  These 
were  carried  to  an  extreme  at  first,  but 
were    softened    as    time    went    on,    and 

t  h  e 
final 
effect 
of  the 
move- 
ment 
was 
entirely 
painting. 


FIG.  419. — ELIJAH  AND  WIDOW'S 

SON.     (madox  brown.) 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

beneficial     to     English 


Gabriel     Rossetti, 
spirit,    had,    perhaps. 


FIG.    420. HOPE. 

(watts.)     Tate  Gallery. 


its  ruling 
been  in- 
fluenced more  than  can  now  be 
traced  by  his  friend.  Ford  Madox 
Brown,  in  whose  work  a  fore- 
shadowing of  the  P.R.B.  prin- 
ciples can  be  recognized.  Brown 
(1821-1893)  was  educated,  as 
an  artist,  at  Bruges,  Ghent,  and 
230 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


FIG.    421. — MRS.    MORRIS.       (ROSSETTI.) 


FIG.   422. — LILITH.      (ROSSETTI.) 


Antwerp,  and  did  not  establish  himself  in  England  until  1847. 
He  took  part  in  the  Westminster  Hall  competitions  (1845- 
1848),  and  was  commissioned  thirty  years  later  to  execute  a 
series  of  twelve  wall  paintings  in  the  Manchester  Town  Hall, 
which  remains  his  chief  work.  He  is  represented  by  two 
important  pictures  at  the  Tate  Gallery,  Christ  Washing  St.  Peter's 
Feet  and  Chaucer  at  the  Court  of  Edward  III.;  and  by  an 
extraordinary  page  of  elaborate  perversity,  called  Work,,  in  the 
Manchester  Gallery.  Two  of  his 
better  designs  are  Elijah  and  the 
Widow's  Son  (V.  and  A.  Museum) 
and  Romeo  and  Juliet  (Leathart 
Collection).  Madox  Brown's  gift 
was  essentially  Teutonic.  He  either 
did  not  feel,  or  set  himself  to  spurn, 
certain  artistic  conditions  which  men 
of  Latin  and  Celtic  blood  instinc- 
tively obey.  He  stuffed  his  nar- 
rative till  he  killed  it,  he  forced  his 
drama  till  he  caricatured  it,  he  too 
often  confused  passion  with  gri- 
mace; and  his  art  remained  the  art 
of  a  young  man  all  his  life.  He 
never  was  an  actual  member  of  the 
P.R.B.,  and  some  doubt  remains  as 

231 


FIG.  423. — REGINA  CORDIUM.     (roSSETTI.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


to  whether  he  was  invited  to 
become  one  or  not.  His  in- 
fluence, nevertheless,  was  far- 
reaching  and  profound. 

Gabriel  Rossetti  (1828- 
1882),  the  real  founder  and 
ruling  spirit  of  the  P.R.B., 
was  in  a  sense  Madox 
Brown's  pupil,  but  he  painted 
his  first  picture,  The  Girlhood 


4^4- — CHANT  d'aMOUR.      (sIR  E.  BUkNE-JONES.) 

Mr.  James  Ismay. 


of  Mar^  Virgin,  with  the  help  of  Holman 
Hunt.  He  had  been  for  a  short  time  a 
student  at  the  Royal  Academy,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  his  art  would  have 
profited  by  a  longer  stay.  He  never  passed 
out  of  "the  antique"  into  "the  life,"  and 
throughout  his  career  he  was  handicapped 
by  his  consequent  inability  to  do  what  he 
wished  with  his  palette  and  brush.  In 
spite  of  this  he  contrived  to  win  a  great 
reputaUon  among  his  friends  as  a  painter 
both  in  water  color  and  in  oil.  His  sub- 
jects were, 
as  a  rule, 
legendary, 
mystical, 
and  poetical 
rather  than 
strictly  pic- 
torial: and 
it  is  not  un- 
just to  say 
that  his  gifts 


FIG.  425. — DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA. 
(sir   E.   BURNE-JONES.) 

Mr.  R.  H.  Benson. 


FIG.    426. — BURD    ELLEN. 

(wind  US.) 


as  a  painter  are  chiefly 
shown  in  his  water  colors.  Together 
with  Burne-Jones,  William  Morris, 
and  others,  he  painted  the  walls  of 
the  old  debating  room  in  the  Oxford 
Union,  but  the  pictures  are  now 
232 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


fig.  427. — the  annunciation, 
(g.  a.  storey.) 


almost  invisible.  Among  the  best 
of  his  oil  pictures  are  The  Blue 
Bower,  The  Beloved,  and  the 
LaclyLilithoi\864.  T\ie Dante's 
Dream,  now  in  the  Liverpool 
Gallery,  is  an  ambitious  failure, 
considering  that  it  was  painted  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  Rossetti 
avoided  publicity  while  he  lived, 
and  it  was  not  until  after  his  death 
that  any  considerable  section  of 
the  public  became  acquainted  with 
his  art.  Two  of  his  pictures,  Beata 
Beatrix  and  an  early  work,  Ecce 
Ancilla  Domini  (Behold  the 
Handmaid  of  the  Lord),  are  in 
the  National  Collection  at  Mill- 
bank.  Rossetti 's  personal  influence 
over  those  with  whom  he  came  in 
contact  was  enormous,  and  to  him 

chiefly  must  be  imputed  that  plunge   downward    in    the   technique 
of  painting  which  occurred  in  England  more  or  less  simultaneously 
with   the  successful   attempt  to   raise  its  intellectual    level.     Among 
the  numerous 
painters  who 
may  be  called 
his  followers, 
few  show  any 
real   compre- 
hension of  the 
expressive 
value  of  their 
material. 

Of  all  his 
followers  by 
far  the  most 
important 
was  Sir  Ed- 
ward    Burne-  fig.   428. — mercy   and    truth.      (MRS.   DE  MORGAN.) 

Jones  (1833- 

1898),  who  was,  like  Watts,  of  Celtic  extraction.     He  was  educated 

for  the  Church,  but  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  made  the  acquaintance 

233 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


of  Rossetti,   by  whom  he  was   induced   to   leave   Exeter    College, 
Oxford,   and  commence  painter.     He  produced  a    large  number  of 

designs  for  stained  glass,  he  col- 
laborated with  Rossetti  and  Morris 
in  decorating  the  Oxford  Union, 
he  travelled  with  Ruskin  in  Italy 
and  copied  the  Venetian  Masters ; 
he  decorated  rooms  for  Lord  Car- 
lisle, William  Morris,  and  Birket 
Foster;  he  made  cartoons  for 
tapestry  and  for  mosaic;  and  he 
painted  many  pictures.  His  art 
was  unknown  to  the  public  until 
the  opening  of  the  Grosvenor  Gal- 
lery in  1877,  when  he  made  a 
great  sensation  with  The  Da^s 
of  Creation,  The  Beguiling  of 
Merlin  and  The  Mirror  of  Venus. 
These  were  followed  a  year  later 
by  Laus  Veneris  and  the  Chant 
d' Amour,  perhaps  his  two  best 
works.  Other  things  in  which  his  full  power  is  seen  are :  King 
Cophetua  and  the  Beggar  Maid  (National  Collection),  Wheel 
of  Fortune  (Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.  Balfour),  The  Golden  Stairs 
(Lady  Battersea),  The  Depths  of  the  Sea  (R.  H.  Benson, 
Esq.),      The    Brazen    Tower    and    The    Briar   Rose.      He    was 

elected  an  A.R.A.  in  1885; 


FIG.    429. — SHADOW    OF   DEATH. 

(holman  hunt.)      Manchester  Gallery 
By  permission  of  Messrs.  Agnew  &r=  Sons. 


exhibited  a  pictorial  hint 
to  the  Academy  the  fol- 
lowing year;  and  resigned 
in  1893.  He  was  created  a 
baronet  in  1894.  Burne- 
Jones  would  deserve  to  be 
set  on  one  of  the  highest 
pedestals  in  the  temple  of 
art  were  it  not  for  certain 
peculiarities,  which  were  his 
own,  and  faults  of  tech- 
nique, which  he  probably 
owed  to  the  influence  of 
Rossetti.  His  imagination  was  effeminate,  and  his  self-criticism 
weak.     As   a    draughtsman,    he   had    little   sense   of   structure    and 

234 


ITG.   430. — LORENZO   AND    ISABELLA. 

(millais.)     Liverpool  Gallery. 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


solidity;  as  a  painter,  he  entirely  failed  to  give  his  material  the 
rich  body  which  is  its  right.  Splendid  in  color  though  his  finer 
works  certainly  are,  the  poverty  of  their  substance  deprives  them  of 
a  place  beside  the  great  Venetians  by  whom  they  were  inspired. 
This  defect,  and  the  structural  ignorance  which  spoils  the  beauty 
of  his  drawing,  correspond  so  closely  to  similar  defects  in  Rossetti 
that  we  are  doing  the  latter  no  injustice  in  laying  them  at  his  door. 

Other  painters  whose  work  sets  them  in  the  same  group  with 
Rossetti  and  Burne- Jones  are  James  Collinson,  member  of  the  P.R.B., 
Charles  Allston  Collins, 
Arthur  Hughes,  Mat- 
thew James  Lawless,  and 
W.  L.  Windus,  all  of 
whom  did  good  work 
which  has  never  won 
appreciation.  Coming 
down  later  still,  in  the 
same  succession,  we 
reach  the  names  of  J.  M. 
Strudwick,  Spencer  Stan- 
hope, Fairfax  Murray, 
Evelyn  Pickering  (Mrs. 
de  Morgan),  T.  M. 
Rooke,  Marie  Spartali 
(Mrs.  Stillman),  Archi- 
bald Macgregor,  Byam 
Shaw,  Reginald  Framp- 
ton,  Graham  Robertson, 
Cayley  Robinson,  T.  C. 
Gotch,  etc. 

Returning  to  the 
P.R.B.,  one  member 
requires  a  paragraph  to  himself,  so  lonely  has  been  the  furrow  he 
has  ploughed  for  the  last  half-century.  Mr.  William  Holman  Hunt, 
O.M.,  born  in  1826,  was  the  oldest  of  the  active  pre-Raphaelites. 
He  is  one  of  those  painters,  more  numerous,  perhaps,  in  this  country 
than  elsewhere,  who  unite  considerable  aesthetic  gifts  with  perverse 
theories  as  to  their  use:  the  result  being  a  series  of  works  before 
which  it  is  quite  impossible  to  feel  that  sense  of  active  repose  which 
the  finest  art  inspires.  A  picture  which  excites  controversy  is  not 
necessarily  a  good  picture :  and  nearly  all  Mr.  Hunt's  pictures  do  this. 
His  best  works,  perhaps — as  works  of  art — are  Strayed  Sheep y  The 


FIG.  431- 


-YEOMAN    OF   THE    GUARD.       (MILLAIS.) 

Tate  Gallery. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   432. — SOUVENIR   OF   VELAZQUEZ. 

(millais.)     R.  Academy. 


Hireling  Shepherd,  the  Shadow 
of  Death,  and  the  Finding  of 
Christ  in  the  Temple.  But  every 
picture  with  an  interesting  per- 
sonality behind  it  is  interesting: 
and  the  personaHty  betrayed  in 
Mr.  Hunt's  work  is  very  interest- 
ing indeed,  but,  like  the  person- 
ality of  Mantegna,  it  is  not  es- 
pecially that  of  a  painter.  Among 
those  who  should  be  catalogued 
in  his  suite,  although  some  among 
them  would  not  confess,  per- 
haps, to  being  his  disciples,  are 
W.  S.  Burton,  R.  B.  Martineau, 
and  Frederick  Sandys. 

The  only  other  member  of  the 
Brotherhood  who  requires  de- 
tailed notice  is  Millais.  Sir  John 
Everett    Millais,     Bart.    (1829- 

1896),  was  a  Jerseyman.     He  came  to  London  at  the  age  of  nine, 

was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  Academy  students  at  the  age  of 

seventeen,  an  A.R.A.   at  twenty-four,  an  R.A.  at  thirty-four,  and 

P.R.A.    a    few  months   before    his 

death.     He  began  life  as  a  painter 

by      accepting      the      conventional 

methods     in    vogue    before     1848, 

but  on  the  foundation  of  the  P.R.B. 

he  adopted  its  principles  in  all  their 

rigidity,     sending    pictures     to     the 

exhibition  which  raised  a  storm  of 

abuse  and   ridicule.     Among   these 

were   Ferdinand  and  Ariel,     The 

Carpenter's  Shop,   the  Woodman's 

Daughter,    Lorenzo    and    Isabella 

(Liverpool    Gallery),     The  Return 

of  the   Dove   to   the  Ark  (Oxford 

Gallery),  Mariana   in   the  Moated 

Grange,  and  The  Death  of  Ophelia 

(Tate    Gallery).     The    first    picture 

to   win   the  suffrages  of  the  crowd 

as  well  as  of  the  more  open-minded 

236 


fig.  433. — portrait  of  j.  c.  hook, 
(millais.) 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


P 

N 

i/'i 

1^ 

ll^^ 

>'L-i 

»/« 

'   ^ 

#f 

mm 

r  / 

m   im''    ^ 

TIG.    434. — LILIUM    AURATUM. 
(j.    F.    LEWIS.) 


critics,  was  The  Husuenot  (Miller  Col- 
lection), which  was  folio  wed  by  The  Order 
of  Release  (Tate),  the  Proscribed  Royal- 
ist, The  Rescue,  the  Black  Brunsioicker, 
the  Vale  of  Rest,  Sir  Isumhras  at  the 
Ford  (Mr.  R.  H.  Benson),  and,  above 
all.  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  (Mrs.  Prinsep), 
in  which  poetry  of  general  conception 
was  united  to  a  literal  and  non-selective 
execution.  Toward  1870  a  change 
came  over  his  ideas.  He  painted  more 
richly  and  with  a  better  sense  of  decora- 
tion, turning  out  such  fine  pages  of  color 
as  Stella,  Vanessa,  a  Souvenir  of  Velaz- 
quez (R.  Academy),  the  Gambler's  Wife, 
and  The  Boyhood  of  Raleigh  (Tate). 
About  the  same  time  he  began  the  regu- 
lar painting  of  portraits,  the  earliest  to  attract  any  great  attention 
being  Sisters  (three  of  his  own  daughters),  Miss  Nina  Lehmann, 
Hearts  are  Trumps  (Mrs.  J.  H.  Seeker  and  her  sisters ;  three  young 
gids  at  dummy  whist),  and  Mrs.  Bischoffsheim.  Among  his  later 
portraits  are  Mrs.  F.  H.  Myers,  The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  K.  G. 
(British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society),  Mrs.  Jopling,  ^ree  Gladstones 
(National  Gallery;  Christ  Church, 
Oxford;  Earl  of  Rosebery, 
K.G.),  Mrs.  Perugini,  John 
Bright,  Cardinal  Newman,  Lord 
Tennyson,  Sir  Gilbert  Greenall, 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  J.  C.  Hook, 
R.A.,  Dorothy  Thorpe,  Lady 
P^SSy  Primrose,  and  Simon 
Eraser. 

If  art  be  "nature  seen  through 
a  temperament,"  Millais  as  a 
landscape  painter  was  not  an 
artist  at  all,  for  his  pictures  are 
so  entirely  objective  that  a  pho- 
tograph from,  say.  Chill  Octo- 
ber, is  hardly  to  be  distinguished 
from  one  after  the  place  itself. 
And  so  with  all  his  more  ambi- 
tious landscapes.    They  are  por- 


jL    1 

mm 

fi 

wk 

237 


FIG.    435. — PICCADILLV.      (E.  J.  GREGORY.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  436. — HER  FIRST  DANCE.     (siR  W.  Q.  ORCHARDSON.) 

By  permission  of  Messrs.  Dowdeswell. 


traits  of  sitters  with  whom  he  ventured  to  take  no  sort  of  liberty: 
they  had  become  his  friends  too  late  in  life.     If  he  had  held  out 

his    hand    twenty    years 

sooner,  he  might  have 
had  time  to  work  through 
his  over-respectful  ap- 
proaches, and  to  give  us 
landscapes  worthy  to  hang 
beside  the  Eve  of  St. 
Agnes,  or  the  portraits 
of  Gladstone,  Tenny^son, 
and  Hook- 

The    place    of    Millais 
in  our  history  is  difficult 
to  fix.     At  present  he  is 
being  judged  mainly  by 
^  his  faults,   and  his  fame 

stands  lower  than  it  did  while  he  was  alive.  But  the  time  will  come 
to  him,  as  to  others,  when  his  weak  productions  will  be  forgotten,  and 
he  will  be  remembered  only  as  the  painter  of  such  things  as  those 
enumerated  above.  The  danger  to  his  reputation  may  then  lie  in  a 
certain  lack  of  individuality,  in  a  variety  which  appears  to  spring 
rather  from  vacillation  than  from  breadth  of  sympathy.  The  man 
who  could  paint  both  Christ  in  the  house  of  his  Parents  and 
Bubbles  may  seem  too  vague  in  outline  for  worship,  and  the  power 
evident  in  his  best  things  may  be  insufficient  to  keep  him  in  the  front 
rank.      Everything,  however,  is  forgiven  to  a  colorist,  and  in  color 

most  of  his  pictures  are  fine, 
while  the  years  will  soften 
crudeness  in  the  rest. 

To  find  pre-Raphaelite 
principles  carried  to  their 
logical  conclusion  we  have 
to  turn  to  two  painters  who 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
brotherhood,  or  with  each 
other.  These  two  were  J.  F. 
Lewis.  R.A.  (1805-1876), 
andJohnBrett(l832-1902). 
Lewis  was  called  by  Ruskin 
one  of  the  leaders  of  pre-Raphaelism,  while  of  a  picture  by  Brett 
the' same  critic  declared  it  was  "after  John  Lewis,  simply  the  most 

238 


FIG.   437. — MASTER   BABY.      (ORCHARDSON.) 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


FIG.  438. — EARL   SPENCER. 

(frank  HOLL.) 


perfect  piece  of  painting,  with  respect  to  touch,  in  the  Academy 
this  year;  in  some  points  of  precision  it  goes  beyond  anything  the 
re-RaphaeUtes  have  done  yet." 
oth  Lewis  and  Brett  are  well 
represented  in  the  Tate  Gallery. 
To  me  their  art  seems  without 
serious  interest. 

Without   going   so   far   as   those 
who  would  derive  every  touch  of 
poetry  and  of  love  for  beauty  in 
modern  English  painting  from  the 
pre-Raphaelites,  it  must  yet  be  con- 
fessed that  their  influence  was  great 
and  is  by  no  means  exhausted  even 
now.     How  far   this   was   due   to 
their  own  example  and  how  far  to 
that  of   the   real   pre-Raphaelites, 
the  Italians  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
it     would     take     a     volume     to 
determine.     It  may  be  said  that  the 
study  of  these  latter  men's  works  was  a  result  of  the  movement  of 
1848.     At  that  rate,  the  general  revival  of  interest  in  primitive  art, 
and  the  total  neglect  of  the  Italians  of  the  seventeenth  century,  may 
be  credited  to  Madox  Brown, 
who  thus  becomes  a  very  im- 
portant    person     indeed.      For 
there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever 
that  his  example  was  the  torch  set 
to  the  pre-Raphaelite  bale-fire. 

The  following  list  includes 
most  of  the  better  painters,  not 
yet  mentioned,  who  have  shown 
obvious  sympathy  with  pre- 
Raphaelite  ideas  :  G.  P.  Boyce, 
Walter  Crane,  W.  H.  Deverell, 
Arthur  Hughes,  Frederick 
Shields,  Simeon  Solomon,  J.  E. 
Southall,  Henry  Wallis,  Mat- 
thew J.  Lawless,  Gerald  Moira, 
and  E.  J.  Gregory. 

The  pre-Raphaelite  revolt  is 
the  last  great  movement  which  fig  439 

239 


COUSINS,      (frank  HOLL.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


really  belongs  to  the  history  of  British  Art.  Those  developments 
which  have  taken  place  since  are  more  cosmopolitan  than  British. 
They  have  been  moves  toward  assimilating  our  insular  ideas  to  those 
of  the  Continent,  which,  in  painting,  mean  the  ideas  of  France  and 
Holland.  Being  all  moves  in  one  direction,  they  have  had  con- 
siderable similarity,  one  with  another,  and  it  is  scarcely  worth  while 
to  dwell  much  on  the  differences  which  separate  the  neo-Scots 
school  from  that  of  Newlyn,  or  both  from  those  franker  disciples  of 

Paris  who  have  been  so  greatly 
encouraged  by  the  genius  of  the 
two  Americans,  Whistler  and 
Sargent(Figs.416,  449,  450). 

The  Scottish  School  which 
became  so  conspicuous  in  the 
sixties,  was  mainly  the  creation 
of  Robert  Scott  Lauder,  whose 
teaching  had  a  great  effect  on  the 
painters  who  were  beginning  their 
careers  just  after  the  completion 
of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  two  ablest  members 
of  the  school  were  John  Pettie, 
who  died  comparatively  young, 
and  Sir  William  Quiller  Orchard- 
son,  who  has  gradually  conquered 
a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  Euro- 
pean painters,  and  that  in  spite  of 
the  extreme  individuality  of  his 
style.  His  best  pictures  are  divid- 
FiG.  440.— SPRING,    (j.  LAVERY.)  cQ  bctwccn   portraiture   and   the 

Musee  du  Liixembourg,  Paris.  i*i         r  f*ii..-  T.i 

higher  lorm  or  illustration.  In  the 
former  class,  Sir  Walter  Gilbey,  Bart,  is  perhaps  his  finest  work; 
in  the  latter,  Voltaire  (Hamburg  Kunsthalle),  Napoleon  on  the 
Bellerophon  (Tate  Gallery),  and  A  Tender  Chord  (Humphrey 
Roberts  Collection),  show  him  at  his  best. 

The  younger  Scottish  school  originated  in  Glasgow,  whither,  during 
the  last  thirty  years,  a  very  large  number  of  fine  pictures  by  the 
French  romanticists  have  found  their  way.  How  far  the  existence 
of  these  pictures,  and  others  of  good  quality  in  the  local  collections, 
may  have  been  the  cause,  and  how  far  the  result,  of  the  local  interest 
in  art  it  is  difficult  to  say.  Certain  it  is  that  for  many  years  past 
an   ever-increasing   number   of   young   Glaswegians   have    attracted 

240 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


general  attention  by  their  pict- 
ures. The  first  Glasgow 
painter  to  develop  a  new 
and  personal  feeling  toward 
nature  was  John  Milne 
Donald  (1819-1866).  He 
was  the  true  artistio  progenitor 
of  Colin  Hunter,  whose  best 
works,  such  as  the  Herring 
Market  at  Sea  (Manchester 
Gallery)  and  Lobster  Fishers, 
show 


FIG.   441. — WHARFDALE.      (CECIL   LAWSON.) 


FIG.   442. — AN   EARLY 

VICTORIAN. 

(W.    LOGSDAIL.) 


both  fidelity  to  nature  and  a  brilliant  gift  of 
artistic  selection.  By  far  the  strongest  im- 
pression was  made,  however,  on  the  Glasgow 
School,  by  the  example  of  Whistler  and  by 
the  work  of  a  native  impressionist  of  great 
ability,  Mr.  William  McTaggart.  The  more 
distinguished  of  the  younger  men  are  Sir 
James  Guthrie,  now  P.R.S.A.,  John  La  very 
(Fig.  440),  George  Henry,  Edward  Hornell, 
Alexander  Roche,  James  Paterson,  E.  A. 
Walton,  T.  Austen  Brown,  Joseph  Crawhall, 
Harrington  Mann,  D.  Y.  Cameron. 

The  Newlyn  school  was  not  a  local  develop- 
ment, like  that  of  Glasgow,  but  merely  consisted 
of  a  number  of  young  artists  who  held  similar 
ideas,  and 
thought  it 
wise    and 


pleasant  to  withdraw  into  the 
soft  quietude  of  the  Cornish 
coast  '  for  their  development. 
The  leader  of  the  exodus,  if 
such  a  word  may  be  used,  was 
Stanhope  Forbes,  whose  wife, 
Elizabeth  Forbes,  is  one  of  the 
few  women  who  can  both  con- 
ceive an  organic  work  of  art  and 
carry  it  out.  The  main  character- 
istics of  the  group,  as  a  whole, 
are  fidelity  to  scenes  of  familiar      fig.  443 

241 


-MUSIC  LESSON. 


(lord  LEIGHTON.) 

R 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    444. MAUNDY    THURSDAY.       (siR   J.    D.    LINTON.) 


life  for  subjects,  and  their  execution  in  a  broad  manner  of  brushing, 
with    scrupulous    regard    to    the    behavior    of    Ught.     Besides    the 

Stanhope  Forbes,  the 
group  includes  Frank 
B  r  a  m  1  e  y,  Norman 
Garstin,  John  da 
Costa  and  several 
others. 

Apart  from  these 
more  or  less  organized 
movements,  English 
painting  has  had  its 
groups  and  tendencies 
like  other  schools.  To 
us,  w^ith  our  present 
inclinations,  the  most  interesting  group  appears  to  be  formed  by  the 
men  who  are  nearest  to  nature,  who  obey,  in  fact,  the  principles 
of  Constable  and  Courbet,  even  although  some  among  them  would 
rather  criticise  than  praise  those  two  artists'  works.  Most  of  these 
men  are  landscape  painters,  and,  as  nature  has  many  moods,  they 
show  enough  variety  to  make  it  appear  a  little  venturesome  to  put  them 
all  in  one  group.  James  Clark  Hook  (1819-1907)  was  a  Londoner 
born  well  within  sound  of  Bow  Bells.  In  his  youth  he  received  the 
advice  of  Constable  and  won  the  Academy  gold  medal.  For  years 
he  painted  costume  pictures,  but  about  1854,  when  he  was  already 
thirty-five  years  of  age,  he  discovered  his  true  line  and  began  that 

series  of  sea  and  coast  subjects 
which  made  him  famous.  His 
works  are  so  curiously  equal  in 
style,  merit,  and  "importance" 
that  selection  is  difficult.  Luff 
Bo^  ( 1 859)  and  four  pictures 
in  the  Tate  Gallery  represent 
him  well. 

Still  more  realistic  than 
Hook  are  Henry  Moore 
(1831-1895)  and.  Napier 
Hemy.  Moore,  especially,  \ 
built  up  a  style  of  rendering  the 
sea  which  has  never  been  ap- 
proached for  veracity  in  texture,  color,  and  movement.  His  blue  seas, 
with  the  sun  behind  the  spectator,  almost  produce  illusion.     Among 

242 


FIG.    445.— ^SUMMER   MOON.       (lEIGHTON.) 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


s 


FIO.   446. — THE   OPEN   BOOK. 
(albert   MOORE.) 

les    sees    things    with    more 


his  better  things  are  The  Newhaven 
Packet,  Clear  Shining  after  Rain 
which  won  the  Grand  Prix  in 
Paris  Exhibition  of  1889),  a 
Perfect  Day  for  a  Cruise,  and  A 
June  Sea.  Mr.  Napier  Hemy  has 
more  variety,  but  less  freshness. 
Two  pictures  in  the  Tate  Gallery — 
Pilchards  and  The  London  River — 
represent  him  well.  Edwin  Hayes, 
Irish  by  birth,  worked  in  much 
the  same  style;  Mr.  W.  L.  Wyllie 
paints  life  on  the  water  with  a  keen 
sense  of  its  scenic  qualities — evi- 
dence, Toil,  Glitter,  Grime,  and 
Wealth  on  a  Flowing  Tide  and 
The  Battle  of  the  Nile,  both  in  the 
Tate   Gallery.     Mr.   Thomas   Somerscai 

breadth  and  simplicity,  but  suggests  the  light  and  movement  of  the 
south  with  the  happiest  truth  in  Off  Valparaiso  (Tate  Gallery). 

Of  the  landscape  painters,  in  the  literal  sense,  belonging  to  this 
group  of  independent  naturalists,  the  most  distinguished  is  Cecil 
Gordon  Lawson  (1851-1882),  who  was,  in  all  probability,  only 
prevented  by  his  weak  health  from  taking  a  higher  place  than  any 
other  English  landscape  painter  since  the  death  of  Turner.  His 
best  work  combines  a  poetic  imagination  with  frank  observation  and 
grandeur  of  style  in  a 
very  high  degree.  His 
life  was  too  short  for  a 
great  harvest.  Among 
his  best  pictures  are 
The  Minister's  Gar- 
den (Manchester  Gal- 
lery), The  August 
Moon  (Tate  Gallery), 
The  Hop  Gardens  of 
England,  The  Cloud, 
and  Burden  Moor. 
The  influences  we  feel 
in  Cecil  Lawson's  art 
are  those  of  Watts  and 
Ruysdael,  with 


'. — HOME    FROM    THE    RIDE. 

Tate  Gallery. 

243 


(CHARLES   FURSE.) 

r2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


ft . 


FIG.   448. — DIANA   OF  THE   UPLANDS. 

(CH.  FURSE.)     Tate  Gallery. 


whom,  too,  Mr.  Alfred  East 
has  much  in  common,  in  spite 
of  the  more  decorative  balance 
of  his  conceptions.  The  influ- 
ence of  Corot  is  also  evident 
in  his  work.  More  directly 
traceable  to  Constable  is  the 
art  of  Mr.  Mark  Fisher,  whose 
best  pictures  are  at  once  bril- 
liant pages  from  nature  and 
thoroughly  well  organized  crea- 
tions. Bo^s  Bathing  (Dublin 
City  Gallery)  and  On  the 
River  Stour  are  fine  examples. 
Mr.  J.  R.  Reid  paints  in  a 
style  which  recalls  various  other 
painters,  but  is  still  thoroughly 
individual. 

Death  has  been  cruel  to  the 
British  school  of  painting  during 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  It  has  cut  off  our  most  promising  land- 
scape painter  at  thirty-one,  our  most  promising  painter,  without  any 
qualification,  at  thirty-six,  and  one  of  our  cleverest  young  men  at 
thirty-three.  The  allusions,  of  course,  are  to  Cecil  Lawson,  C.  W. 
Purse,  and  Robert  Brough.  Furse  (1 868-1 904)  was  born  at  Staines, 
his  father,  Canon  Furse,  being  a  relation  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.     He 

received  his  education  in  art 
at  the  London  Slade  School 
and  at  Julian's,  Paris.  He 
was  a  slow  beginner,  for 
although  his  early  works 
attracted  much  notice,  they 
scarcely  promised  the  great 
performance  in  which  his  art 
culminated.  For  many  years 
Purse  suffered  from  lung 
trouble,  which  finally  killed 
him.  Among  his  best  works 
are:  The  Return  from  the 
Ride,  Diana  of  the  Uplands, 
and  Equestrian  Portrait  of 
Lord  Roberts,  K.G.,  all   in 


FIG.  449. — painter's  mother,     (vvhistler.) 

Mu    '     " 


[usee  du  Luxembourg,  Paris. 


244 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


the  Tate  Gallery ;  The  Lilac  Gown  (portrait  of  Miss  Mabel  Terry 
Lewis)  and  Cubbing  with  the  York  and  Ainsty  (a  family  portrait). 

The  talent  of  Robert  Brough  (1872-1903)  was  of  a  different  kind. 
It  lay  too  much,  perhaps,  in  mental  and  manual  dexterity,  and  in  a 
faculty  for  seizing  upon  telling  points.  It  was  showing  signs,  how- 
ever, of  leaving  this  behind  and  acquiring  breadth  and  dignity  when 
a  railway  accident  put  an  end  to  his  career.  His  Saint  Anne  of 
Brittany  and  Twixt  Sun  and  Moon 
are  in  the  Modern  Gallery  at  Venice ; 
his  Fantaisie  en  Folie  in  the  Tate 
Gallery. 

The  mention  of  Venice  suggests  the 
names  of  two  painters  who  should  not 
be  passed  over  in  silence:  Mr.  Henry 
Woods  and  Mr.  William  Logsdail. 
They  have  both  painted  the  Lagoon 
City  with  great  ability,  and  the  former 
has  practically  devoted  his  whole  career 
to  illustrating  Venetian  life,  and,  inci- 
dentally, to  the  painting  of  daylight. 
In  this  he  has  occasionally  found  a  com- 
panion in  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Luke 
rildes,  who  will  be  remembered,  how- 
ever, chiefly  by  his  scenes  from  modern 
English  life,  such  as  The  Village  Wed- 

One  of  the  quaint  perversities  to 
which  artists  are  prone  is  the  belief 
that  good  archaeology  makes  good  art. 
England  is  seldom  without  a  group  of 
painters  working  in  what  they  hope  are 
classical  traditions,  and  producing  what 
they  believe  to  be  plausible  restorations 

of  the  life  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Lord  Leighton  was  the  head  and 
leader  of  the  more  decorative  section,  just  as  Sir  Laurence  Alma 
Tadema  is  of  the  more  historically  minded.  Other  members  of  the 
group  are,  or  were.  Sir  Edward  Poynter,  Val  Prinsep,  C.  E. 
Perugini,  and  Albert  Moore.  i 

With  Albert  Moore,  however,  classicism  was  merely  a  vehicle ;  a 
vehicle  driven  with  great  ability,  for  our  critical  fancy  could  almost 
agree  that  thus  and  not  otherwise  the  Greeks  must  have  painted: 
but  still  a  vehicle,  for  he  had  a  true  pictorial  reason  for  his  art  in  his 

245 


FIG.   4SO. — DUCHESS   OF   PORT- 
LAND,      (j.    S.    SARGENT.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

rhythm  of  line  and  the  decorative  beauty  of  his  color.  Among 
his  best  pictures  are  The  Quartet,  Midsummer,  A  Summer  Night, 
Silver,  and  The  Open  Book  (Fig-  446). 

A  group  of  English  painters  of  which  a  good  deal  used  to  be 
heard  was  the  St.  John's  Wood  School,  in  which  the  bond  of  union 
was  a  common  devotion  to  "costume"  subjects.  Among  the  chief 
members  were  P.  H.  Calderon,  H.  S.  Marks,  John  Pettie,  W.  F. 
Yeames,  and  several  other  painters  who  carry  on  the  tradition 
with  as  much  success,  perhaps,  as  it  deserves.  Among  the  ablest 
of  these  are  Mr.  J.  Seymour  Lucas,  who  contrives  to  prove  himself 
an  artist  in  spite  of  his  archaeology,  and  Mr.  A.  C.  Gow,  whose 
drawings  of  soldiers  and  other  picturesquely  clothed  individuals  are 
as  complete  and  precise  as  those  of  Meissonier.  A  very  large 
number  of  other  painters  would  have  to  be  noticed  in  any  exhaustive 
work  on  English  art.  In  a  hand-book  such  as  this  it  is  enough  to 
mention  a  few  of  the  more  conspicuous  among  those  who  have 
worked  with  acceptance  without  being  part  and  parcel  of  any 
particular  movement  or  group. 

Frank  Holl  (1845-1888)  had  two  careers.  He  began  as  a 
powerful  but  sombre  painter  in  the  genre  of  Israels,  delighting  in  the 
blackest  woe,  whether  for  the  sake  of  the  black  or  the  woe  has  never 
been  determined  fNo  Tidings  from  the  Sea,  The  Lord  gave  and 
the  Lord  hath  taken  away.  Hushed,  &c.).  In  1878  he  sent  to  the 
R.A.  a  portrait  of  Cousins,  the  engraver,  which  was  so  much  ad- 
mired that  for  the  rest  of  his  life  Holl's  studio  was  crowded  with 
sitters.  Among  his  best  portraits  are  the  Duke  of  Cleveland,  Earl 
Spencer,  Lord  Overstone,  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  Lord  Wolseley, 
and  John  Bright.  He  sometimes  failed  to  catch  a  likeness,  but  his 
work  is  always  full  of  strength  and  decision,  and  may  be  compared 
to  that  of  the  distinguished  Frenchman,  M.  Leon  Bonnat. 

Mr.  John  Macallan  Swan  (B.  1847)  is  of  Scottish  extraction. 
His  art  education  was  obtained  at  Worcester,  in  London,  and  in 
Paris.  He  is  chiefly  famous  for  his  animals,  which  he  paints  and 
models  with  unrivalled  knowledge  of  movement  and  structure.  But 
his  pictures  and  sculptures  in  which  the  human  figure  is  treated  are 
no  less  admirable.  His  drawings,  too,  are  among  the  best  of  modern 
times.  He  is  represented  in  the  Tate  Gallery  by  a  good  picture, 
The  Prodigal  Son. 

Mr.  Briton  Riviere  (B.  1 840)  paints  animals  from  a  different  stand- 
point. A  less  profound  glance  into  their  anatomy  is  sufficient  for 
him,  for  he  is  concerned  more  with  their  picturesque  exteriors 
and    with    their    dramatic    capabilities    than    with    their    structure, 

246 


PAINTING-THE  PRESENT  DAY 


One  of  his  better  works  is  the  Herd  of  Swine  running  "violently 
down  a  steep  place  into  the  sea,"  in  the  Tate  Gallery. 

Sir  Hubert  von  Herkomer's  most  conspicuous  quality,  or  defect, 
is  his  versatility.  He  is  painter,  engraver,  enameller,  modeller, 
musician,  actor,  architect,  &c.,  and  has  consequently  never  carried 
any  one  of  his  pursuits  to  the  perfection  it  might  otherwise  have 
reached.  Versatility  alone  does  not 
make  a  Leonardo.  Among  his 
better  pictures  are  two  portraits  of 
ladies,  one  in  white  and  one  in 
black;  The  Last  Muster;  the 
Town  Council  of  Landsherg, 
Bavaria,  and  the  Council  of  the 
Royal  Academy,  1908. 

Mr.  J.  W.  Waterhouse  ought, 
perhaps,  to  be  classed  with  the 
archaeologists,  but  he  contrives  to 
be  so  essentially  modern  in  his 
archaeology  that  we  prefer  to  look 
upon  him  simply  as  a  decorative 
painter.  His  best  works — St. 
Cecilia,  Hylas  and  the  Nymphs — 
would  make  excellent  tapestry.  His 
earlier  and  more  dramatic  pictures 
^Mariamne,  St.  Eulalia,  The  Magic  Circle— aire  less  attractive.  I 
must  be  content  to  name  Mr.  Bacon,  Mr.  Campbell  Tayler,  Mr. 
Charles  Sims,  Mr.  Cadogan  Cowper,  Mr.  Greiffenhagen,  Mr. 
Mouat  Loudan,  Mr.  E.  J.  Gregory,  the  late  James  Charles  ( 1 85 1  - 
1896),  and  Mr.  La  Thangue,  as  all  producing  work  with  a 
character  and  individuality  of  its  own.  Mr.  Sims,  especially,  has 
attracted  notice  during  the  last  few  years  by  works  in  which  extraor- 
dinary technical  dexterity  is  at  the  service  of  a  strange  and  moving 
imagination.  At  first,  he  was  content  with  suggesting  more 
thoroughly  than  any  other  English  painter  the  quality  and  behavior 
of  unmitigated  sunlight,  as  we  see  it  in  places  like  Brighton  beach. 
For  the  last  two  years  he  has  been  much  more  ambitious,  and  has 
sent  to  the  Academy  a  series  of  painted  poems  which  excite  the 
greatest  curiosity  and  hopes  for  his  future.  ^  They  are  painted 
poems  of  the  right  kind,  not  in  the  least  degree  literary,  but  depending 
entirely  on  pictorial  qualities  for  their  power  to  move  our  sympathies. 
One  of  these.  The  Fountain,  has  already  found  its  way  into  the  national 
collections. 

247 


FIG.   451 


-WALTER    CRANE. 
F.    WATTS.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

Among  the  latest  movements  in  English  art  is  the  foundation  of 
the  Society  dubbed  with  some  clumsiness  and  want  of  resource  The 
New  English  Art  Club.  It  was  founded  some  twenty  years  ago  by 
a  number  of  young  artists  whose  bond  of  union  was  a  Paris  training, 
the  leading  spirits  at  the  time  being  W.  J.  Laidlay,  T.  C.  Gotch, 
T.  Stirling  Lee,  Frederic  Brown,  S.  J.  Solomon,  T.  B.  Kennington, 
J.  Havard  Thomas,  P.  W.  Steer,  and  one  or  two  more,  nearly  all 
of  whom  have  since  won  a  certain  measure  of  distinction.  At  the 
present  moment  the  club  includes  several  men  of  great  ability, 
the  most  promising  for  the  future  being,  perhaps,  Mr.  William 
Orpen,  whose  early  work — he  is  still  very  young — recalls  that  of 
some  of  the  greatest  names  in  art.  Another  member,  Mr.  Augustus 
John,  has  given  proof  of  executive  ability  of  the  first  class. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  nothing  has  been  said  about  the  Impres- 
sionists as  a  separate  school.  Their  principle,  that  a  picture  should 
make  the  same  kind  of  impression  on  the  eye  as  that  made  by  nature, 
plus  selection  for  the  sake  of  beauty,  has  affected  the  whole  of  art 
in  its  modernest  development.  It  is  really  a  more  intelligent  form 
of  the  principle  for  which  the  P.R.B.'s  contended,  substituting  things 
as  seen  for  things  as  they  exist.  Its  inventor  and  preacher  was  James 
Abbott  McNeill  Whistler  (1834-1903),  an  Anglo-Celt  by  race, 
an  American  by  nationality,  a  Frenchman  by  early  training.  His 
example  has  so  widely  affected  the  theories  and  practice  of  art  in 
our  own  time  that  any  attempt  to  shepherd  his  followers  into  a  group 
would  be  misleading. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  TO  CHAPTERS  XIII— XVI 

Vertue,  George:  MS.  Collections  in  the  Print  Room  of  the  British  Museum.  Walpole, 
Horace,  Earl  of  Orford  :  Anecdotes  of  Painting,  Dallaway  and  Womum's  Edition.  Redgrave, 
G.  and  R. :  A  Century  of  Painters,  1 866.  Bryan,  M. :  Dictionary  of  Painters  and  Engravers, 
ELdition  of  1898  (Williamson).  Chesneau,  E. :  La  Peinture  Anglaise,  n.d.  Bouchot,  H. :  La 
Femme  Anglaise  el  des  peintres,  1903.  Dobson,  Austin,  and  Armstrong,  Sir  W. :  William 
Hogarth,  1902.  Armstrong,  Sir  Walter:  Sir  foshua  Reynolds,  1901;  Thomas  Gainsborough, 
1899;  Turner,  1902.  Wherry,  O. :  Turner.  1903.  Ward,  T.  H.,  and  Roberts,  W. :  Romney, 
1904.  Phillips,  Claude:  John  Opie  {Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts),  1892.  Leslie,  C.  R.,  and 
Taylor,  Tom:  Letters  of  John  Constable,  1876.  Gower,  Lord  R.  Sutherland;  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence,  1900.  McColl,  D.  S.,  and  Carmichael,  Sir  T.  D.  G. :  Nineteenth  Century  Art,  Glas- 
gow, 1902,  Muther,  R.:  History  of  Modem  Painting,  1899.  Sizeranne,  R.  de  la:  Histoire  de 
la  Peinture  Anglaise  Contemporaire,  1895.  Sizeranne,  R.  de  la:  Whistler,  Ruskin,  et 
d'Impressionisme  (Revue  de  I'Arl),  1893.  Hunt,  W.  Holman:  The  Pre-Raphaelite  Brother- 
hood {Contemporary  Review),  1886.  Monkhouse,  Cosmo:  British  Contemporary  Artists, 
1899.  Meier-Graefe,  J.:  Entwickelungsgeschichte  der  Modemen  Kunst,  1904.  (Translation 
by  Miss  F.  Simmonds  now  in  the  press.)  Burne-Jones,  Lady :  Life  of  Sir  Edward  Burne-Jones, 
Bart.,  1906.  Millais,  J.  G. :  Life  of  Sir  John  Everett  Millais.  Bart.  Way,  T.  R.,  and  Dennis, 
I.  R.:  The  Art  of  James  McNeill  Whistler,  1903.  Duret,  Theodore:  Whistler,  1904. 
Meypell,  Mrs.:  The  Works  of  John  Singer  Sargent,  1903.  Baldwin-Brown,  G. :  The  Glas- 
gow School  of  Painters,  1908.  Armstrong,  W. ;  Scottish  Painters,  1888.  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography, 


248 


m 

f^^^^i'^  ''^V^^^^ 

ft  J^l^i  fl 

I2i^ 

(unknown 

FIG.    452.— CHILD. 

(Mr.  G 

FOLLOWER    OF    HOLBEIN.) 

FIG.    453- — CHILD. 

Salting's  Collection.) 

CHAPTER  XVII 
PORTRAIT-MINIATURES 


During  the  century  which  elapsed  between  the  disappearance  of 
EngHsh  supremacy  in  the  art  of  decorating  manuscripts  and  the 
arrival  of  Holbein  at  the  Court  of  Henry  VIII.,  the  traditions  of 
the  miniaturists  had  faded  away, 
until  they  retained  only  just  enough 
vitality  to  afford  a  hint  to  the  Augs- 
burg master.  He  was  not  slow  in 
showing  the  native  limners  what 
their  art  could  do,  and  from  his  ex- 
ample dates  a  fashion  and  a  succes- 
sion which  persisted  until  the  inven- 
tion of  photography.  The  first  of 
his  followers  (he  was  no  pupil)  to 
reach  any  respectable  proficiency 
was  Nicholas  Hilliard,  who  has  left 
on  record  the  often-quoted  saying: 
"Holbein's  manner  of  limning  I  have  «<=•  "ferriaitogTcofiecS""™' 
ever  imitated,   and  hold   it  for   the 

best."  Not  that  Hilliard's  miniatures  are  very  like  Holbein's.  There 
is  no  danger  of  confusing  them,  as  those  of  other  painters  practising 
at  the  same  time  in  England  have  been  confused,  with  the  German 

,   249 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   455. — N.    HILLIARD,   P^RE. 

(hilliard,  fils.)    Salting  Collection. 


master's  work.  Hilliard  had  a 
finer  sense  of  elegance  than  Hol- 
bein. His  sitters  have  a  grace  of 
carriage  and  a  suavity  of  contour 
which  Holbein  lacks.  But  they 
exist  with  far  less  vigor,  their 
drawing  is  less  unerring,  and  their 
color  far  inferior  to  Holbein's  in 
that  combination  of  frankness  and 
harmony  which  was  the  most  sur- 
prising quality  in  the  German. 

Hilliard  was  succeeded  by  two 
men  of  greater  powers  than  his 
own:  Isaac  Oliver,  or  Olivier,  and 
Peter,     his 


son.  Although  of  English  birth,  they  were 
probably  of  French  extraction.  The  date 
of  Isaac's  birth  is  unknown,  but  he  died  in 
Blackfriars,  where  Van  Dyck  was  after- 
ward to  establish  himself,  in  1617.  Isaac 
Oliver's  style  began  by  very  distinctly  show- 
ing its  affiliation  with  that  of  his  master, 
Hilliard,  but  grew  simpler  and  more  broadly 
effective  as  it  developed.  Peter,  whose 
earlier  miniatures  strongly  resemble  the 
later  ones  of  his  father,  showed  himself  in 

time  to  be  a 


FIG.  456. — HILLIARD,  NICHO- 
LAS, (by  self.)  Salting 
Collection. 


FiG.457.—LADY.(j.HOSKiNS.)  Mrs.  Joseph. 


faithful  admirer  of  Van  Dyck.  It  is 
known  that  he  also  painted  in  large, 
in  oil,  and  it  is  more  than  probable 
that  he  was  the  true  author  of  cer- 
tain portraits  now  ascribed  to  Van 
Dyck,  which  do  not  exactly  agree 
with  the  master's  style  or  with  that 
of  any  of  his  known  scholars.  Peter 
Oliver  died  in  1 647.  Fine  examples 
of  the  two  Olivers  are  owned  by 
his  Majesty,  by  Lords  Derby  and 
Exeter,  by  Mr.  Burdett  Coutts  and 
Mr.  Wingfield  Digby,  by  the  Duke 
of  Buccleuch,  and  many  other  col- 
lectors. The  Victoria  and  Albert 
250 


PORTRAIT-MINIATURES 


FIG.  458.— LADY  HUNSDON.     (l.  OLIVER.)  FIG.459. — ARABELLA  STUART.  (n.HILLIARD.) 

Mrs.  Joseph's  Collection. 

Museum  possesses,  in  the  Jones  collection,  Isaac  Oliver's  wonder- 
ful full-length  miniature  of  Sackville,  Earl  of  Dorset,  here  reproduced 
(see  Frontispiece).  Besides  the  two  Olivers,  several  other  miniaturists 
worked  in  England  in  the  Holbein  tradition.  The  two  cleverest, 
and  latest,  were  Penelope  Cleyn,  the  daughter  of  a  designer  at  the 
Mortlake  Tapestry  factory,  and  John  Hoskins  (d.  1 664  ?).  Hoskins 
was  only  surpassed  as  a  miniaturist  by  his  own  nephews  and  pupils, 
Alexander  and  Samuel  Cooper,  the  latter  of  whom  was  not  only 
the  best  miniature  painter,  but  one  of  the  most  gifted  artists  that 
England  can  boast. 

Samuel  Cooper  (1609-1672)  was  the  pupil  of  his  uncle  Hoskins, 
and  also  studied  for  a  time  in  France  and  Holland.  He  appears 
to  have  been  the  true  originator  of  the  style  we  now  associate 
exclusively  with  Van  Dyck,  for  miniatures  by  him,  executed  before 
Van  Dyck  came  to  England,  anticipate  the  air  of  conscious  dis- 
tinction which  the  Fleming  afterward  saw  in  the  English  upper 
classes.  Among  the  finest  of  Cooper's  works  are  the  miniatures 
of  Cromwell,  at  Chatsworth  ;  of  Monk,  at  Windsor  ;  and 
several  in  the  magnificent  collection  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch.  "No 
portrait  by  Van  Dyck  .  .  .  brings  us  into  such  intimate  rela- 
tion with  a  personality  as  do  Samuel  Cooper's  miniatures  .  .  . 
and  how  profoundly  artistic  they  are  !  Each  occupies  its  narrow 
surface  to  perfection,  each  is  a  masterpiece  of  design,  of  drawing, 
of  modelling,  even  of  color  ;  and  each  stops  exactly  where 
it   should.    There   is   no   effort   to    tell    more    than   the    conditions 

251 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


no.   460. — SIR   PHILIP   SIDNEY. 

(i.  OLIVER.)     Windsor  Castle. 


to    his    Majesty,     the    Dut 
land,  Devonshire,  and  Portland,  Earl  Spen- 
cer, Mrs.  Joseph,  and  others. 

After  the  death  of  Cooper,  English  paint- 
ing of  portrait  miniatures  soon  came  to  the 


will  allow,  no  attempt  to  rival  work 
on  a  larger  scale.  Solicitude  is  con- 
centrated on  the  heads,  and  there  every 
touch  helps  to  add  intensity  to  the 
artist's  record  of  the  man  before  him. 
A  fine  Cooper  is  a  triumph  of  selec- 
tion, of  precision  in  the  right  place, 
of  suggestion  in  the  right  place,  of 
balance  and  harmony  all  over." 
Cooper's  miniatures  are  still  numerous, 
although  a 
large  number 
have  p  e  r- 
ished  in  one 
way  or  an- 
other. Good 
c  o  1 1  e  c  tions 
also  belong 
of    Suther- 


riG.  462. 


-DOUBLE   LOCKET.       (hILLIARD.) 

Mr.  G.  Salting. 


FIG.    461. PORTRAIT   OF   MAN 

UNKNOWN.      (l.     OLIVER.) 

V.  6*  A.  Museum. 


end  of  its  first  period 
of  glory.  Cooper  was 
followed  b  y  three 
men  of  great  ability, 
Thomas  F 1  a  t  m  a  n , 
Laurence  Crosse,  and 
Nathaniel  Dixon, 
after  whom  the  art 
fell  for  a  time  into 
the  hands  of  ungifted 
immigrants,  who  cap- 
tured patronage  by 
means  which  have 
too  often  proved 
successful  since  their 
day. 
The     second     fine 


252 


PORTRAIT-MINIATURES 


FIG.   463. — JAMES   I. 
(l.   OLIVER.) 


FIG.    464. — ANNE   OF    DENMARK, 
(l.   OLIVER.) 


FIG.   465. — HENRY,   PRINCE  OF 
WALES.      (l.    OLIVER.) 


FIG.    466. — PRINCE   CHARLES, 
(l.   OLIVER.) 


1 

V 

f 

FIG.  467. — HENRY,   PRINCE  OF 
WALES.      (l.   OLIVER.) 

Mr.  G.  Salting's  Collection 


FIG.   468. — LADY.      (l.   OLIVER.) 


253 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.   469 — PORTRAIT   OF   RICHARD 
CROMWELL.      (S.   COOPER.) 


Mrs.  Joseph's  Collection. 


FIG.   470. — PORTRAIT   OF   LADY 

UNKNOWN.       (fLATMAN.) 


period  began  about  the  time  of  the  founding  of  the  Royal  Academy, 
in  1 769.  John  Smart,  who  exhibited  in  London  from  1 762 
to  1813,  was  the  best  equipped  of  this  later  generation.  His 
miniatures  have  never  been  equalled  for  completeness,  precision, 
and  technical  perfection.  In  modelling  they  equal  those  of  Holbein, 
and  it  is  only  in  harmony  of  color  that  they  occasionally  fail  to 
please.  Smart  was  a  friend  of  Cosway,  whose  art,  however,  was 
strangely   unlike   his   own.     Where   Smart   was   complete,    precise, 

almost  Teu- 
tonic in  his  love 

for    detail     and 

finish,     Cosway 

was     broad     in 

conception    and 

execution,      and 

dependent       on 

his    sense    of 

beauty     for 

effect.    It    is 

curious  that  both 

were   miniatures 

FIG.  471. — PORTRAIT  (FLATMAN.)  £ 

Mr.  Salting.  ot    men  :    some 

five    feet    high  ! 
Slightly  junior  to  these  two  artists,  and  inferior  to  them  in  genius, 
were    the    two    Plimers,    Andrew    (1763-1837)    and    Nathaniel 

254 


FIG.    472. — PORTRAIT   OF  MAN 
UNKNOWN.       (FLATMAN.) 

Mr.  Salting. 


university 
^^4LLfor^)>Portrait-miniatures 


FIG.   473. 


-portrait  of  gentleman. 
(bogle.) 


(1 757-1 822),  Ozias  Humphrey 
(1742-1810),  James  Nixon  (1741- 
1812),  George  Engleheart  (1752- 
1829),  Samuel  Shelley  (1750?- 
1808),  Richard  Crosse  (1740?- 
1810),  and  Horace  Hone  (1756- 
1825)  ;  while  on  a  lower  plane  still 
were  Nathaniel  Hone  (1718-1784), 
Henry  Edridge  ( 1  769- 1 82 1 ),  Samuel 
Cotes  (1734-1818),  WilHam  Wood 
(1768-1809),  Thomas  Hazlehurst 
(1760-1818),  Luke  Sullivan  (Died 
1  77  l),Richard  Collins  (1755- 1831), 
William  Grimaldi  (1751-1830), 
Samuel  Finney  (1721-1807),  John 
Bogle(l  769-1  792),  Andrew  Robert- 
son (1777-1845),  and  many  others. 

The  nineteenth  century  brought  with  it  a  decisive  fall  in  the  general 
character  of  portrait  miniatures.  They  became  ambitious  in  the  wrong 
direction,  with  a  tendency  to  increased  size,  elaboration,  and  self- 
assertion,  and  a  consequent  loss  in  the  unity  which  had  been  their 
artistic  charm.  Andrew  Robertson  ( 1  777- 1 845)  was  a  man  of  ability, 
but  his  miniatures  do  not  look  content.  They  seem  to  breathe  a 
desire  to  grow  into  life-size  pictures.  And  it  was  the  same  with  the 
other  miniaturists  who  filled  in  the 
time  between  him  and  the  advent  of 
photography  :  with  Mrs.  Mee 
(1770?- 1851),  Newton  (1785- 
1869),  Ross  (1794-1876),  Chalon 
(1781-1860),  and  Thorburn(1818- 
1885). 

The  splendor  of  the  British 
school  of  portrait  miniatures  is  a 
rather  curious  phenomenon.  For  it 
depends  on  qualities  which  have  not 
distinguished  British  art  as  a  whole. 
It  depends  on  a  sense  of  form,  on 
power  of  concentration,  on  ability 
to  summarize  fact  without  falling  into 
emptiness,  virtues  which  have,  more 
often  than  not,  been  somewhat  to 
seek    among    our    artists.     None   of 

255 


fig.   474. — PORTRAIT   OF   A   LADY. 

(j.  SMART.)     Mrs.  Joseph. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


the  Continental  miniaturists  have  equalled  Samuel  Cooper, 
Flatman,  Hoskins,  Laurence  Crosse,  John  Smart,  or  Cosway,  or  even 
some  members  of  the  second  flight,  in  the  gift  for  putting  no  more 
on  a  square  inch  or  two  of  card  or  ivory  than  it  was  fit  to  bear,  and 


FIG.   475. — PORTRAIT   OF   A  MAN. 

(cosway.)     Mrs.  Joseph. 


FIG.    476. — PORTRAIT  OF  DUKE   OF 

WELLINGTON.  (coswAY.)  Mrs.  Joseph. 


FIG.   477. — PORTRAIT  OF  LADY  ANNE 

FANE,     (cosway.)     Mrs.  Joseph. 


FIG.   478. — portrait  of   A   LADY. 
(ANDREW    ROBERTSON.) 


yet  suggesting  at  the  same  time  that  their  equipment  was  complete] 
and  could  have  played  on  a  six-foot  canvas  with  equal  success. 

A  certain  number  of  English  miniaturists  worked  in  enamel, 
is   quite   certain    that   the   art    of    enamelling    was    practised    hei 

256 


PORTRAIT-MINIATURES 


throughout  the  Gothic  ages,  for  docu- 
mentary evidence  exists  that  the  art  was 
frequently  the  subject  of  regulations  by  the 
Sovereign.  The  probability  is  that  many 
objects  at  present  ascribed  to  Continental 
schools  were  produced  in  England,  if  not 
always  by  Englishmen.  A  country  in 
which  the  making  of  stained-glass  windows 
was  carried  to  the  perfection  it  reached 
here  could  scarcely  have  failed  to  work 
successfully  in  enamel.  The  fashion  of 
enamel  miniatures — if  it  can  be  said  ever 

been    a 


FIG.  479. — PORTRAIT  OF  A 
LADY.   (S.  PLIMER.) 


FIG.  480. — PORTRAIT  OF  A 
MAN.   (bogle.) 


to  have 

fashion — was  set 
in  England  by  Jean  Petitot  the  elder 
(1607-1691)  and  his  friend,  Pierre 
Bordier  (F.  1650),  both  natives  of 
Geneva.  After  a  period  of  study  in  Italy, 
the  two  friends  came  to  England,  where 
they  were  patronized  by  their  country- 
man. Sir  Theodore  de  Mayerne,  physi- 
cian to  Charles  I.  Mayerne,  who  pre- 
sented them  to  the  King,  had  long  been 
studying  enamels,  so  that  his  knowledge, 
added  to 
the    tech- 


nical ex- 
perience of  the  two  artists,  led  to 
great  results.  Petitot  had  lodgings 
in  Whitehall.  He  "portraictured" 
the  King  and  other  members  of  the 
Royal  Family,  he  copied  several  of 
Van  Dyck's  pictures  in  enamel,  and 
was  an  established  institution  when 
the  triumph  of  the  Parliament  and 
death  of  the  King  drove  him  to  seek 
new  fields.  He  emigrated,  and 
sought  the  patronage  in  exile  of 
Charles  II.,  who  brought  him  to  the 
notice  of  Louis  XIV.  For  the 
French  King  he  produced  a  large 
number  of  enamels,  in  which  he  was 

257 


FIG.    481. — WARREN   HASTINGS. 
(O.    HUMPHREYS.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


fig.  482. — enamel. 
(gervase  spencer.) 


assisted  by  the  faithful  Bordier,  and  by  his  own  son,  Jean  Petitot 
the  younger  (after  1650?- 1695).  The  elder  Petitot  died  at  Geneva 
in  1691,  at  the  age  of  84.  His  son  settled  in 
England.  He  studied  for  a  time  under  Samuel 
Cooper,  and  was  still  living  in  London  in  1695. 
Enamels  by  Bordier  are  comparatively  rare,  the 
most  important  being  the  Fairfax  Jewel,  pre- 
sented by  the  Parliament  to  Sir  Thomas  Fair- 
fax after  the  battle  of  Naseby.  It  now  belongs 
to  Lord  Hastings.  Enamels  by  the  Petitots 
are  numerous.  Their  merit  lies  almost  entirely 
in  the  excellence  of  their  technique,  which  leads 
to  great  brilliance  and  vivacity.  Fine  collec- 
tions exist  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum,  the  Wallace  collection,  the  Louvre,  and  in  many  private 
cabinets. 

The  first  successor  of  the  Petitots  in  this  country  was  Charles 
Boit,  a  Franco-Swede,  who  came  to  England  as  a  drawing  master, 
but  when  here  took  up  enamel  painting.  His  career  was  stormy 
and  his  works  are  rare.  The  best  are  in  the  possession  of  Mr. 
Jeffrey  Whitehead,  Lord  Spencer,  Captain  Holford,  and  in  Viennese 

collections.  After  Boit  came  his 
pupil,  Christian  Friedrich  Zincke, 
a  Saxon  and  a  prolific  artist,  who 
produced  a  large  number  of  por- 
traits. The  best  of  these  are  excel- 
lent, uniting  brilliance  to  breadth 
of  effect  with  conspicuous  success. 
Good  examples  are  to  be  found  in 
all  the  chief  collections  of  minia- 
tures. Zincke  lived  in  England 
for  sixty  years,  dying  here  in  1  767. 
Other  foreigners  by  birth  who 
worked  enamel  in  England,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  were  :  George 
Michael  Moser  (1  704  ?-l  783)  and 
Jeremiah  Meyer  (1  735-1  789),  both 
foundation  members  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  Rouquet  (1  702?- 1  759), 
Groth  (1650),  Christian  Richter  (1680  ?-l  732),  and  the  brothers 
Hurter  (1730-1790). 
The   native   English    enamellers    were    a    small    band.     Gervase 

258 


FIG.  483.- 


-enamel  portrait  of  h.  bone, 
(by  himself.) 


PORTRAIT-  MINIATURES 

Spencer  (d.  1 763),  who  began  life  as  a  domestic  servant,  produced 
some  good  miniatures  in  enamel  as  well  as  in  water  color. 
Nathaniel  Hone  (1718-1784)  was  excelled 
in  enamel  as  well  as  in  ordinary  miniature- 
painting  by  his  son  Horace  (1756-1825), 
whose  best  work  is  full  of  charm  and 
power.  Henry  Spicer,  William  Prewitt, 
and  several  other  native  workers  are  known 
chiefly  or  solely  by  their  signatures  on  a 
few  pieces.  A  more  important  name  is 
that  of  Henry  Bone  (1755-1834).  who 
would  have  been  one  of  the  finest  of  all 
workers  in  enamel  had  his  eye  for  color 
been  better.  A  native  of  Cornwall,  he 
began  life  as  a  decorator  of  porcelain,  at 
Plymouth.  After  devoting  himself  to  enamel, 
he  produced  copies  of  many  famous  pictures 

and  of  a  whole  series  of  Elizabethan  portraits.  He  was  elected  R.A. 
in  18 II,  and  died  in  1834.  His  sons,  Henry  Pierce  (1779-1855) 
and  Robert  Trewick  Bone  (1790-1840),  practised  their  father's 
art  with  less  success.  With  the  death  of  H.  P.  Bone  in  1855 
the  succession  of  workers  seduced  into  enamel  in  England  by  the 
fame  and  fashion  of  Petitot  came  to  an  end.  Within  the  last  few 
years  the  art  has  been  taken  up  anew,  and  practised  with  success 
by  Sir  Hubert  von  Herkomer,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nelson  Dawson, 
and  several  others.  So  far,  however,  no  one  has  again  attempted 
to  make  it  a  medium  for  portraiture.  It  is  adapted  neither  to 
modem  fashions  nor  to  modern  hurry. 


FIG.  484. — PORTRAIT.     (NOAH 
SEAMAN.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Propert.   J.   L.:  A  History  of  Miniature  Art,    1887. 
British  and  Foreign,  1903.      Williamson.  G.  €.:  Portrait  Miniatures,  1897;  Illustrated  Cata- 


Foster,  J.  J.:  Miniature  Painters, 
"oreign,  IVLO.  Williamson,  G. 
logue  of  Exhibition  of  Miniatures,  Burlington  Fine  Art  Club,  1889;  Catalogue  of  Exhibition  of 
Miniatures  at  the  Royal  Academy,  1879;  Catalogue  of  Special  Exhibition  of  Miniatures  at 
the  S.  K.  Museum,  1865.  Robertson,  Andrew:  Letters  of,  with  a  Treatise  on  the  Art  of 
Miniature,  1895. 


259 


S2 


FIG.    485. — SKETCH    FOR    A    LANDSCAPE.       (GAINSBOROUGH.) 

J.  P.  Heseltine,  Esq. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


WATER-COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 

One  of  the  three  artistic  activities  in  which  England  can  show  a 
clean  pair  of  heels  to  all  her  rivals  is  painting  in  water  color.*  This 
art,  of  course,  was  no  new  discovery  on  the  part  of  our  eighteenth 
century  painters.  It  had  been  practised  in  the  same  form,  i.  e.,  in 
transparent  color,  by  the  Dutch  landscape  painters  of  the  previous 
century.  But  they  had  only  turned  to  it  occasionally,  and  had  never 
cared  to  develop  its  special  capacities.  The  particular  individual  to 
whom  the  modem  school  should  look  as  its  originator  was  Paul 
Sandby  (1725-1809),  a  native  of  Nottingham,  who  followed 
successively  the  occupations  of  military  map-maker,  topographical 
draughtsman,  picturesque  draughtsman  and  drawing-master.  He 
was  also  an  etcher  and  aquatinter.  Much  of  his  work  was  done  in 
body  color,  but  he  also  practised  the  more  luminous  method.  His 
last     employment     was     that     of     chief     drawing-master     at    the 

'  The  other  two  being  mezzotint  engraving  and  the  painting  of  portrait 

260 


WATER -COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 


Royal  Military  Academy, 
Woolwich.  Excellent  examples 
of  his  work  are  in  the 
British  Museum,  the  Edin- 
burgh, Dublin  and  Kensing- 
ton collections.  Contem- 
porary with  Sandby  were 
various  half-forgotten  artists 
who  occasionally,  at  least, 
painted  in  water  color : 
Charles  Brooking  (1  723- 
1 759),  already  mentioned 
for  his  sea  pieces  in  oil  ; 
Dominic    Serres    (1722-1793), 


FIG.   486. — ON   THE   WHARFE.      (gIRTIN.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

the  two  Gilpins,  the  Rev.  W. 
(1723-1804)  and  Sawrey, 
R.A.  (1733-1807);  George 
Barret  and  Gainsborough, 
whom  we  need  not  discuss 
further  here,  and  Alexander 
Cozens  (died  in  I  786).  The 
last-named  was  the  natural 
son  of  Peter  the  Great  by  an 
English  mother,  who  accom- 
panied the  Czar  back  to 
Russia.  Peter  sent  him  to 
study  painting  in  Italy,  whence 
he  came  to  England  in  1 746. 
He  soon  became  the  fashion, 

was  appointed  drawing-master  to  Eton  College,  and  to  the  Prince 

of  Wales.     He  married  a  sister 

of  Robert  Edge  Pine,  and  begot 

a  son  by  whom  he  was  to  be 

excelled  in  his  own  line.  Alex- 
ander Cozens  is  to  be  studied  in 

the    Victoria    and    Albert    and 

British  Museums.     His  drawings 

are  imaginative  in  a  ghostly  way, 

and  prepare  one  for  the  stronger 

though  very  similar  productions 

of    his    more    gifted    son,    John 

rvobert  v^ozens.  j.^^^  ^gg_ — ^^jj,  tholsel,  dublin.  (malton.) 

The    younger   Cozens   ( I  752-  National  Gallery,  Dublin. 

261 


FIG.  487. — DUTCH  SHIPPING.     (tHOMAS  HEARNE.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


fig.  489. — verona. 

(bonington.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


1799),   to  whom  Constable  applied  the  often  quoted  phrase,   "he 
was  the  greatest  genius  who  ever  touched  landscape,"  painted  the 

poetry  of  landscape  in  a  method  which 
was  almost  monochromatic.  He  was  the 
first  to  suggest  the  grandeur  and  unap- 
proachableness  of  the  Alps,  and  so,  in 
some  measure,  was  the  forerunner  of 
Turner,  who  has,  indeed,  left  us  several 
Turneresque  versions  of  actual  drawings 
by  Cozens.  Unfortunately,  Cozens  had 
a  strain  of  madness  in  him,  which  de- 
veloped into  insanity  before  the  end  of  his 
life.  Good  collections  of  his  drawings 
exist  in  the  British  Museum  and  at  South 
Kensington. 

A  long  stride  in  advance  was  made 
when  a  certain  young  man,  more  than 
twenty  years  the  junior  of  J.  R.  Cozens, 
appeared  on  the  scene.  Thomas  Girtin 
(1773-1802)  was  the  first  of  our  water- 
color  painters  in  the  modern  sense.  He 
used  color  frankly,  for  its  own  sake,  giving  all  the  depth  and  power 
of  which  the  medium  was  capable.  He  was  also  a  consummate 
artist,  seeing  his  subject  with  fine  breadth  as  well  as  an  eye  to 
characteristic  detail.  Good  examples  of  his  work  are  in  the  British 
Museum  and  at  South  Kensington.  His  drawings  are  always  so 
far  topographical  that  they  represent  real  places.     Some  of  the  best 

deal  with  Paris,  Durham,  and 
scenes  in  Wales  and  Scotland. 
A  magnificent  Rue  St.  Denis, 
Paris,  appeared  at  Christie's 
in  1908.^ 

Girtin's  influence  on  Turner 
was  great.  Turner  himself 
declared  :  "If  Tom  Girtin  had 
lived,  I  should  have  starved." 
And  there  was  so  much 
foundation  for  his  terrors  that, 
while  their  careers  ran  on 
parallel   lines,   Girtin   was   al- 


FIG.    490. — OXFORD.      (dE   WINT.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


ways  ahead, 
by  drink. 


He  died,  however,  at  twenty-nine,  his  end  hastened 
262 


WATER -COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 


Beside  the  Cozens  and  Girtin,  a 
great  number  of  artists,  or  draughts- 
men, were  putting  more  or  less  skill 
and  intelligence  into  the  task  of  ex- 
ploring the  capacities  of  water  color. 
It  will  be  sufficient  here  to  name  men 
like  Henry  Edridge  (1769-1844). 
who  distinguished  himself  in  several 
genres;  A.  W.  Devis  (1763-1822). 
John  Webber  (1  752-1  792)  and  Wil- 
liam Alexander  (1767-1816),  all  of 
whom  worked  in  what  were  then 
remote  parts  of  the  world  ;  Thomas 
Hearne  (1744-1817).  John  (1745- 
1 786)  and  Robert  Cleveley  (d.  1 809). 
Nicholas     Pocock     (1741-1821), 


-VALE  OF  IRTHING.   (COPLEY  FIELDING.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


(see  p.  208).  All  these  were 
eclipsed  when  Turner  began 
to  let  his  imagination  work  on 
the  possibilities  of  the  medium, 
and,  in  drawing  after  drawing, 
to  lift  it  from  a  byway  of  art 
into  a  high  road  along  which 
the  painter  could  march,  head 
up,  with  only  one  misgiving. 
Working  in  a  material  of 
which  you  distrust  the  per- 
manency is  a  little  like  lighting 
with  an  unguarded  rear.     But 


FIG.    491. — LINCOLN.      (dE   WINT.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

Michael  Angelo  Rooker. 
A.R.A.  (1743-1801), 
William  Marlow  (1740- 
1813).  William  Pars 
(1742-1782),  William 
Payne  (exhibiting  from 
1786  to  1813).  Edward 
Dayes  (1763-1 804),  who 
influenced  Turner  con- 
siderably ;  and  the  three 
Maltons,  already  noticed 


E^^m 


FIG.   493. — WINDSOR   CASTLE.      (dAVID   COX.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

263 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    494. — CORN   FIELD.      (dAVID   COX.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


a  hundred  years  ago,  per- 
haps, distrust  had  not  begun 
to  creep  in,  and  no  premoni- 
tion of  the  ruin  which  has  now 
overtaken  too  many  drawings 
of  the  time  had  yet  come  to 
spoil  the  pleasure  of  their 
making.  As  soon  as  Turner's 
halting  years  were  over,  he 
began  to  extend  the  province 
of  water  color,  and  this  he 
never  ceased  to  do  until  his 
creative  days  were  past.     He 


widened  its  grasp,  he  enriched 
its  effects,  he  invented  its  de- 
vices :  until  it  was  capable  of 
such  productions  as  the  Edin- 
burgh or  Battle  of  Fort  Rock, 
in  the  National  Gallery,  or  such 
a  wonderful  color  dream  as 
the  Doge's  Palace,  in  the 
National  Gallery  of  Ireland. 
The  best  way  to  learn  the 
whole  depth  and  breadth  of 


FIG.    495. — MACBETH   AND   THE  MURDERERS. 
(O.   CATTERMOLE.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


FIG.  496. — VENICE,    (j.  HOLLAND.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


Turner  as  a  water-color  painter  is  to 
study  three  public  collections  :  the  collec- 
tion of  finished  drawings  in  the  National 
Gallery,  which  is  quite  accessible  and 
easy  of  examination  in  spite  of  what 
over-hasty  criticism  has  said  to  the 
contrary  ;  and  the  two  small  collections 
left  to  the  Scottish  and  Irish  Galleries, 
respectively,  by  the  late  Henry  Vaughan. 
These  two  latter  collections  have  the 
unique  advantage,  as  collections,  of  being 
entirely  unfaded,  an  advantage  they  will 
retain,  as  Mr.  Vaughan's  will  requires 
that  they  shall  only  be  exposed  to  day- 

264 


WATER-COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 


light  under  certain  specified 
conditions,  which  completely 
secures  them  against  damage. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  water-color  painters 
had  so  far  begun  to  feel  their 
strength  that  a  certain  number 
of  the  leading  spirits  among 
them  combined  to  form  an 
academy,  or  rather  an  Exhibit- 
ing Society,  of  their  own. 
The  original  members  included 


FIG.  498. — BORGIA   S' AMUSE.      (rOSSETTI.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


FIG.   497. — STILL  SUMMER.      (f.    O.    FINCH.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


George  Barret,  junr.  (died 
1842).  W.  Havell  (1782-1857). 
Joshua  Christall  (1767-1847), 
J.  Varley  (1778-]842\  Cor- 
nelius Varley  (1781-1873).  and 
eleven  men  of  less  importance. 
Francois  Louis  Thomas  Francia 
(1772-1839),  a  native  of  Calais, 
settled  in  London,  was  elected 
shortly  after  the  Society  was 
founded,  and  took  a  considerable 
share  in  moulding  the  future 
of    the 


s  c  h  ool. 

He  also 
had  a  great  effect  on  the  develop- 
ment of  the  gifted  Richard  Parkes 
Bonington  (1801-1828),  who  affords 
the  most  remarkable  instance  known, 
perhaps,  of  race  and  nationality  pre- 
vailing over  environment  in  the  forma- 
tion of  an  artist.  For  Bonington  was 
almost  entirely  French  in  training  and 
education,  but  in  his  art  as  English  as 
man  could  be. 

The  later  history  of  English  water 
color  resolves  itself  merely  into  a  cata- 
logue of  famous  names,  and  a  few  notes 
on   their  varieties  of  ideal   and  practice. 

265 


FIG.  499. — KING  RENE'S  HONEY- 
MOON.     (ROSSETTI.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


The  nature  of  the  material 
prevented  these  varieties  from 
being  very  great,  and  kept 
the  painter  of  famiUar  Eng- 
land on  one  narrow^  plat- 
form w^ith  the  figure  painter 
and  the  illustrator  of  the 
larger  aspects  of  nature 
abroad. 

The  most  flourishing  period 

of    all,    the    period    between 

FIG.    500. WARKWORTH   CASTLE.  ,  .  ,       .     ^  .         .  «'1J 

(sir  ERNEST  wATERLow.)  the    founoation    of    the      old 

Society"   and  the  commence- 
ment of  that  doubt  of  the  material's  permanence  which  has   made 


I 


FIG.    501. — PLOUGHING   IN   SUSSEX.      (tHORNEWAITE.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

itself  felt  during  the  last  five  and  twenty  years,  was  illumined  by  the 

genius  of  some  ten  or  twelve 
men.  These  were  :  George 
Barret,  junr.,  already  men- 
tioned, Samuel  Prout  ( 1  783- 
1852),  William  Henry  Hunt 
(1790-1864).  Peter  de  Wint 
n  784-1849),  Anthony  Van- 
dyke Copley  Fielding  ( 1  787- 
1855),  David  Cox  (1783- 
1 859),  George  Cattermole 
(1800-1868),  WilHam  James 
Muller  (1812-1845),  Francis 

riG.502.-HAVFIELD,AMBERLEV.       (WIMPERIS.)  ^^'J^'.      ^'""^  O    ^l^  ^  J^'/^^C^n^' 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.  and     JamCS     Holland     ( I OUU- 

266 


WATER-COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 


1870).  All  these  were  drawing- 
masters,  and  in  that  employment 
acquired  the  combination  of 
facility,  vigor  and  richness  which 
marks  the  \^hole  group.  The 
necessity  for  producing  an 
effective  result  in  the  minimum 
of  time  was  an  excellent  dis- 
cipline. It  did  not  permit  the 
ground  to  be  covered  twice. 
Tones  had  to  be  laid  at  once 
in  their  proper  strength,  and 
modelling  was  done  less  by  add- 
ing than  by  rubbing  out.  The 
results  were  luminous  pictures, 
with  the  light  inside  them. 

George  Barret  was  the  son 
of  the  Irish  disciple  of  Wilson 
mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter. 
He  distinguished  himself  chiefly 
by  his  mastery  of  atmosphere,  in  which  he  reminds  us  of  Albert 
Cuyp.  In  design,  however,  he  was  more  akin  to  Claude,  delighting 
in  elaborately  balanced  compositions  of  a  classical  stamp.     These  he 


FIG.    503. — THE   DRINKER. 
(WAINWRIGHT.) 


painted  in  oil  as  well  as  water. 
Kensington.  F.  O.  Finch  ex- 
celled in  the  same  Claudesque 
style  of  art  as  Barret. 

Samuel  Prout  is  famous  for  the 
sympathetic  skill  with  which  he 
delineated  time-worn  specimens  of 
Gothic  and  Renaissance  architect- 
ure ;  Copley  Fielding  for  the 
dexterity  with  which  he  treated 
subjects  requiring  technical  experi- 
ence ;  Peter  de  Wint  for  his  con- 
summate craftsmanship,  as  befitted 
his  Batavian  blood  ;  Muller  and 
James  Holland  for  their  decorative 
brilliance  ;  and  David  Cox,  the 
best  of  the  whole  group,  for  the 
happy  novelty  of  his  most  expres- 
sive style,  and  for  his  love  of  every- 

267 


A   fine   example   is   at    South 


-MRS.  SIDDONS.      (j.  DOWNMAN.) 

From  Print. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    505.— PASTEL   PORTRAIT.      (jOHN 
RUSSELL.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


thing  which  makes  for  beauty  in 
nature.  W.  H.  Hunt  is  more 
narrowly  imitative.  Some  would 
deny  his  right  to  be  considered 
an  artist  at  all,  and,  indeed,  he  is 
so  inarticulate  in  design  that  it 
takes  all  his  gift  for  color  to  excite 
much  interest  to-day.  A  large 
number  of  other  water-color 
painters  who  have  distinguished 
themselves,  or  at  least  earned  their 
fame,  mainly  in  oil,  might  be 
noticed  here,  but  that  would  be 
repetition.  The  list  includes  such 
names  as  those  of  Madox  Brown, 
Millais,  Rossetti,  and  Burne- Jones. 
A  small  group  which  requires 
to  be  noticed  by  itself  is  that 
which  clusters  round  Frederick 
Walker  (1840-1873)  as  its  leader.  Its  art  is  aggressively 
English,  depending  for  inspiration  on  what  our  German  friends 
would  call  sentimentality  ;  but  justifying  itself  to  some  extent  by 
the  frequently  exquisite  quality  of  its  execution.  After  Walker 
himself,  its  most  distinguished  member  was  George  Pinwell  (1842- 

1875),  who,  like  Walker,  gave  more 
than  one  hint  that  beneath  the  anecdotic 
form  of  art,  to  which  most  of  his  days 
were  given,  lay  a  robust  power  which 
might  have  led  him  far  had  the  fates 
been  more  propitious.  Walker  and 
Pinwell  had  a  following  in  their  lives, 
and  are  never  likely  to  lose  it 
entirely ;  for  their  art  appeals  to  a 
continuing  passion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race. 

The  generation  which  has  followed 
these  men  has  been  notable  as  a  whole 
for  its  experiments  with  the  medium. 
Certain  painters  of  ability,  such  as  the 
late  Thomas  Collier,  Mr.  Thornewaite, 
Sir  Ernest  Waterlow,  and  E.  M.  Wim- 
peris,  have  been  content  with  the  sim- 
268 


FIG.   506. — FEMALE  FIGURE. 
(GAINSBOROUGH  ?) 

British  Museum. 


WATER -COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 


FIG.  507. — CHALK   DRAWING   (ALFRED 

STEVENS.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


plicity  of  the  old  ways,  and  have 
carried  on  the  traditions  of  Cox 
and  De  Wint.  But  others  seem 
to  have  feh  that  new  methods 
were  required  to  keep  up  pubHc 
interest  in  their  art  ;  hence  many 
technical  developments,  mostly  con- 
nected with  body  color,  and  a 
much  wider  range  of  subject  than 
used  to  be  thought  sufficient.  In 
the  invention  of  novelties  a  younger 
institution  than  the  "old  Society," 
the  Institute  of  Painters  in  Water 
Colors,  has  shown,  perhaps,  the 
greater  activity.  In  recent  years 
attempts  have  been  made  to  widen 
the  province  of  water  color  and 
to  spur  it  into  a  mistaken  rivalry 
with  oil.  But  these  attempts  have  been  suggested,  not  by  artistic 
considerations,  but  merely  by  the  demand  for  novelty  made 
by  a  blase  generation.  Continental  practice  has  also  contrib- 
uted to  lead  English  water-color  painting  out  of  its  ancient 
ways,  and  to  make  it  a  thing 
of  ingenuity  and  dexterity  rather 
than  of  sincere  art.  The  young 
French  aquarelUstes,  especially, 
have  turned  the  water-color 
artist  into  the  Paganini  of  Paint- 
ing. 

Work  in  Pastel  almost  comes 
under  the  head  of  water  color,  so 
often  has  the  latter  medium  been 
called  in  to  help  out  the  former. 
Pastel  flourished  in  England  during 
the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  beginning  with  such  men 
as  Arthur  Pond  (whose  pastels, 
although  numerous,  are  generally 
unrecognized  as  his),  and  Francis 
Cotes,  and  ending  with  John 
Russell  and  J.  R.  Smith.  The 
recent    revival    has    again    led    to 

269 


FIG.  508. — CHALK  DRAWING.    (ALFRED 

STEVENS.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  509. — STUDY   FOR  ISAIAH   GROUP, 
ST.    PAUL'S.      (ALFRED   STEVENS.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


very  clever  work  being  done  in  tha 
method. 

Drawings 

The  Anglo-Norman  genius  never 
having  been  of  such  a  character  as 
to  demand  expression  in  line,  or 
form  to  use  a  w^ider  term,  drawings 
are  comparatively  rare  in  the  Eng- 
lish school.  Our  painters  have 
loved  to  begin  their  work  on  the 
canvas,  with  the  smallest  possible 
antecedent  labor  in  the  way  of 
sketches,  studies,  investigations  of 
structure  and  movement.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  very  few  indeed 
made  serious  drawings.  Those  of 
Reynolds  were  rough  scribbles, 
giving  little  more  than  the  crudest  indications  of  what  was  intended. 
Hogarth's  drawings  were  blocked-out  maps  of  pictures  ;  Romney 
practically  did  none  at  all  ;  Gainsborough  alone  drew  in  the  sense 
that  the  French  and  Italians  drew.  His  drawings,  whether  of 
figures  or  landscape,  are  among  the  finest  ever  produced  and  now 
fetch  enormous  prices  at  auction.  They  are  always  studies  of  move- 
ment, with  its  decoration  of  sym- 
pathetic drapery  in  the  case  of 
figures  ;  and  of  light  and  shadow 
in  the  case  of  landscape.  They 
are  never  objective  studies  of  struct- 
ure. Hoppner  made  good  draw- 
ings of  landscape,  rather  too  slavishly 
modelled  on  those  of  Gains- 
borough. As  a  young  man 
Lawrence  lived  by  making  draw- 
ings, and  continued  the  habit,  more 
or  less,  throughout  his  life.  But 
his  works  in  line  are  strangely 
weak  and  empty  ;  the  drawing  in 
his  better  pictures — the  Angerstein 
in  the  National  Gallery  and  the 
Warren  Hastings  in  the  National 
270 


FIG.  510. — TURNING  THE  SOD, 

British  Museum, 


(COTMAN.) 


WATER -COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 


FIG.  511. — THE  CENTAUR.     (COTMAN.) 

British  Museum. 


Portrait  Gallery,  for  instance — is 
infinitely  finer  than  anything  he  did 
with  the  point.  The  little  portraits 
of  Downman  are  masterpieces  in 
their  own  way,  and  may  fairly  be 
classed  as  black  and  white  ;  for 
their  color  is  a  mere  tinting,  often 
put  on  from  the  back,  and  their 
beauty  lies  in  the  sculpturesque 
purity  of  their  contours,  combined 
with  an  agreeable  flow  of  line  else- 
where. A  number  of  good  draw- 
ings have  also  been  left  by  Raphael 
Smith,  Wilkie,  Bonington,  and 
others.  But  the  habit  was  seldom 
persistent  enough  to  lead  to  great 
results,  either  in  quality  or  quantity. 

The  landscape  men  make  a  far 
better  show  than  the  figure  painters. 
The  drawings  of  Turner   are  real 

preparations  for  pictures,  notes  of  all  the  phenomena  of  nature, 
transfigured  sometimes  and  always  affected  by  his  own  feeling  in 
their  presence.  Those  of  Constable  are  superb,  showing  the  happiest 
combination  of  objective  with  subjective  qualities.  Crome  was  a 
master  of  black  and  white,  and  Cotman  more  than  a  master.  Some 
of  his  drawings — Turning  the  Sod  and  The  Centaur,  both  in 
the  British  Museum,  for  instance — betray  a  pictorial  imagination 
of  the  highest  rank. 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  painters  of  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  were  dumb 
as  linear  draughtsmen.  It  was 
not  until  the  pre-Raphaelite 
movement  came  to  draw  atten- 
tion to  all  the  habits  of  the 
early  Italian  painters  that  much 
was  done  with  the  point.  And 
even  then  it  was  not  in  line, 
strictly  speaking,  that  the  Eng- 
lish painter  thought.  The  first 
man  to  do  really  fine  work 
was  Alfred  Stevens,  one  of  the 
greatest  masters  of  design  that 

271 


FIG.    512. — LANDSCAPE.      (COTMAN.) 

Sir  Hickman  Bacon,  Bart. 


ART  IN  GREAT"  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    513. — TREES.      (constable.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


ever  lived.  His  best  chalk  drav^ings 
have  never  been  excelled.  From 
the  time  of  Stevens  onw^ard, 
British  painters  have  been  much 
readier  to  use  the  point  than  ever 
before.  Not  that  his  example  had 
much,  or  anything,  to  do  with  it. 
For  so  great  an  artist  he  has 
remained  curiously  unknown,  even 
to  the  present  day.  The  revival 
of  drawing  is  part  of  the  general 
movement  which  has  breathed 
vitality,  if  not  always  excellence, 
into  every  department  of  art. 
The  drawings  of  Lord  Leighton,  of 
Sir  Edward  Burne-Jones,  of 
Albert  Moore,  have  qualities 
which  will  preserve  them  from 
oblivion,'  while  those  of  Whistler  will  take  place,  beside  his  etch- 
ings and  lithographs,  with  the  finest  of  modern  works  in  line. 
When  we  turn  to  living  painters  it  is  difficult  to  make  sure  of  saying 
anything  which  will  stand  the  test  of  time  :  for  a  painter  may  fail 
to  attract  notice  with  his  brush,  and  yet  do  good  work,  more  or 
less  in  secret,  with  the  point.  It  is  safe,  however,  to  say  that  our 
descendants  will  treasure  the  drawings  of  Mr.  J.  M.  Swan,  Mr.  Augus- 
tus John,  Mr.  Muirhead  Bone,  and  a  few  others. 

In   drawings  conceived  for   the  sake  of  illustration,   our  English 
school  has  been  prolific,  and  distinguished,  for  a  century  or  more. 

But  comparatively  few  of 
those  who  have  devoted  them- 
selves to  this  class  of  work 
have  made  their  bull's-eyes  on 
the  right  target.  Instead  of 
depending  on  line,  they  have 
too  often  hankered  after 
color,  tone,  and  other  qual- 
ities not  to  be  easily  made 
good  with  the  point.  This 
is  particularly  true  of 
Frederick  Walker  and  his 
school.  In  recent  years  a 
great  improvement  in  this 
272 


FIG.    514. — SALISBURY.       (CONSTABLE.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


WATER -COLOR  PAINTINGS-DRAWINGS 

matter  has  taken  place,  and  it  would  now  be  possible  to  compile 
a  long  list  of  workers  in  black  and  white  who  are  thoroughly 
alive  to  the  limits,  as  well  as  to  the  powers,  of  their  art.  Much  of 
the  credit  of  this  improvement  must  be  given  to  the  illustrated 
newspapers  and  cheap  magazines.  The  first  of  these  to  show  the 
way  was  the  Illustrated  London  News,  founded  more  than  half  a 
century  ago  ;  and  a  further  long  stride  in  advance  was  made  by  the 
Grapnic,  some  twenty  years  later.  The  managers  of  the  latter 
periodical  gathered  a  regular  school  of  young  workers  in  black  and 
white  about  them,  and  gave  a  stimulus  to  this  particular  branch  of  art 
which  is  not  yet  exhausted.  For  a  time  such  work  was  all  entrusted 
to  the  wood  cutter,  but  a  day  came  at  last  when  processes  founded 
on  photography  enabled  fac-similes  to  be  produced  at  small  cost  and 
with  great  fidelity.  This  brought  work  with  the  pen  to  the  front. 
Pen-drawing  lent  itself  to  methods  which  helped  the  draughtsman 
to  do  himself  rapid  justice,  to  produce  brilliant  results  promptly, 
and  with  a  certainty  limited  only  by  his  own  capacity.  It  may  fairly 
be  called  the  characteristic  art  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  and  has 
had  an  enormous  influence  in  spreading  among  people  in  general 
less  faulty  notions  on  art  than  those  which  used  to  be  commonly 
held.  Clever  draughtsmen  with  the  pen,  artists  in  black  and  white, 
are  now  so  numerous  that  to  name  a  few  would  be  invidious,  but 
this  form  of  drawing  cannot  be  mentioned  at  all  without  exciting 
memories  of  such  men  as  Charles  Keene  and  Phil  May. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Roget,  J.  L.:  History  of  the  Old  Water  Color  Society,  1891.  Monkhouse,  Cosmo:  The 
Earlier  English  Painters  in  Water  Color,  1 898.  Redgrave,  R.  and  S. :  A  Century  of  Painters, 
1866.  Armstrong,  Sir  W. :  Turner,  1902;  ditto,  Alfred  Stevens,  1881.  Stannus.  H.:  Alfred 
Stevens,  1891.  Rossetti,  W.  M.:  Some  Reminiscences,  1906.  Sharp,  W. :  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti,  1882.  Phillips,  Claude:  Frederick  Walker  and  his  ff^ori^s.  Portfolio,  1894.  Hamerton. 
P.  G. :  Landscape,  1885.  Orrock,  J. :  On  the  English  Art  of  Water  Color  Painting,  1891  ; 
Report  to  the  Committee  of  the  Council  of  Education  on  the  Action  of  Light  on  Water  Colors, 
1888.  Hamerton,  P.  G. :  Drawing  and  Engraving,  1892.  Gleeson  White,  J.  G. :  Modem 
Illustration,  1895.  Pennell,  J.:  Pen  Drawing  and  Pen  Draughtsmen,  3rd  Ed.,  1897. 
Pennell,  J.  and  E.  R. :  Lithography  and  Lithographers,  1 898.  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography. 


273 


riG.   515.— SLEEPING   SOLDIERS  ON  THE   EASTER  SEPULCHRE.      LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD-GOTHIC 
SCULPTURE 


The  history  of  Early  Sculpture  in  the  British  Isles  shows  the  same 
peculiarities  as  that  of  our  other  arts.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  full  of 
gaps  ;  the  image-breakers  have  swept  away  links  wholesale,  which 
we  are  left  to  divine  from  what  went  before  and  came  after. 
Secondly,    the    advance    from    barbarism    to    cultivation    was    very 

far  from  continuous,  and,  more 
frequently  than  in  other  coun- 
tries, we  are  shifted  from  one 
racial  development  to  another. 
These  latter  changes  correspond 
with  the  modifications  in  the 
English  population,  and  illustrate 
what  was  said  in  our  first  chapter 
of  the  racial  characteristics  of 
European  Art.  The  oldest  re- 
mains in  Great  Britain  which 
can  be  brought  under  the  head 
of  Sculpture  in  any  developed 
sense,  are  a  number  of  crosses 
which  have  been  called  Anglian 
but  which  are  undeniably  Celtic 
in  inspiration.  The  finest  is  the 
cross  at  Bewcastle,  in  Cumber- 
land, with  a  figure  of  Christ  on 
one  face  and  characteristic  Celtic 
ornament    on    the    other    three. 


FIG.    516. — SOUTH   DOOR   OF   ANGEL  CHOIR. 
LINCOLN   CATHEDRAL. 


274 


SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD 


■p 

1^9 

1 

i«^ 

^w 

ii^iiSili 

1 

^ 

FIG.    517. — SAXON   BAS-RELIEF  :     CHRIST   COMING 

TO    THE   HOUSE   OF   MARTHA    AND   MARY. 

CHICHESTER   CATHEDRAL. 


The  inscriptions  it  bears  allow 

this  monument  to  be  ascribed 

to  the  middle  of  the  second 

half  of  the  seventh  century^ 

It  is  a   first-rate  example  of 

the   early   Celtic   instinct  for 

expression   in    line,    and    the 

control  of  a  pattern  into  unity. 

Contemporary   with    this,    or 

but    little    later,    are    several 

other   crosses    and    fragments 

in   the  neighborhood   of   the 

Border.     These  all  belong  to 

an  epoch  of  fine  inspiration, 

depending,  probably,  for  the 

excellence  of  their  technique 

on  the  presence  of  craftsmen 

from  Eastern  Europe  among 

the    native    sculptors.      But    the    Eastern    influence    has,     perhaps, 

been  exaggerated,  or  rather  misunderstood.     It  is  there,  no  doubt, 

but  only  as  affecting  craftsmanship.     Its  effect  upon  the  controlling 

Celtic  spirit  is  hardly  perceptible. 

In  the  south  of  England,  with  Winchester  for  its  centre,  a  different 
ideal  assumed  control  after  the  Saxon  Conquest.  A  school  with 
a  Teutonic  rather  than  a  Celtic  character  gradually  established 
itself.  Technically,  its  ideal 
was  one  of  research,  rather 
than  of  unity  and  breadth, 
while  its  conceptions  were 
complex,  crowded,  and  dra- 
matic, rather  than  simple, 
coherent,  and  sculpturesque. 
Fine  examples  of  this  Saxon 
school  at  a  fully  developed 
moment  are  the  famous  re- 
liefs in  Chichester  Cathe- 
dral dealing  with  the  story 
of  Lazarus  (Figs.  517  and 
518),  Christ  coming  to 
the  House  of  Martha  and 
Mary   and   The  Raising  of 

-  "^  rj-.,  .  =»         -^  FIG.  518. — SAXON  BAS-RELIEF  :     THE  RAISING  OF 

Lazarus.      1  tiere   is  a  sense  lazarus.    chichester  cathedral. 

275  t2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  519. — DETAIL 

FROM    SOUTH   DOOR- 

WAY.      LINCOLN 

CATHEDRAL. 


of  striving  after  refinement  in  the  execution,  and 
not  a  little  technical  ambition.  Such  difficult 
matters  as  three-quarter  profiles  are  attempted. 
Besides  these  Chichester  reliefs,  other  important 
relics  of  the  school  exist  in  certain  large  roods, 
of  which  Bradford-on-Avon  and  Romsey  possess 
the  best  specimens.  These  were  sometimes  ac- 
companied by  attendant  angels,  of  which  also  a 
few  examples  still  exist. 

The  Norman  Conquest  brought  another  change. 
The  conquerors  were  a  vigorous  race,  lately  from 
the  North,  stirred  by  aesthetic  ambitions  derived 
from  the  Celts  they  had  subdued.  They  at  once 
set  about  covering  their  latest  acquisition  with 
monuments  of  architecture,  but  it  was  long  before 
they  made  any  serious  attempt  to  add  the  glory  of 
free  sculpture  to  their  other  activities.  Their 
great  cathedrals,  Winchester,  St.  Albans,  probably 
London  and  Canterbury,  were  left  bare  of  any 
figure  decoration  but  that  of  the  painter.  At  Lincoln,  indeed, 
certain  reliefs  stand  on  the  west  front  which  would  be  early  and 
important  examples  of  Norman  figure  work,  could  they  be  accepted 
as  contemporary  with  the  architecture  in  which  they  appear. 
For  this  front  was  in  building,  by  Bishop  Remigius,  as  early  as 
1075.      But  these  reliefs  are  of  such  a  character   that  the  choice 

seems  to  lie  between  assign- 
ing them  to  the  Saxon  era 
and  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth 
century.  In  a  sketch  of  our 
national  sculpture,  as  an  art  by 
itself,  no  place  need  be  found 
for  such  carving  as  was  done 
in  the  days  of  round  arched 
Gothic.  Even  in  its  most 
developed  form,  as  in  the 
West  Portal  of  Rochester 
Cathedral,  it  is  narrowly  archi- 
tectonic. 

Gothic  sculpture,  in  any  free 
sense,  may  be  said  to  have 
begun  with  the  fashion  of  intro- 
ducing carved  heads  at  certain 


FIG.   520.- 


-CIRCULAR  BOSS. 
CATHEDRAL. 


276 


SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD 


FIG.    521. 


-CENSING   ANGEL,   LINCOLN 
CATHEDRAL. 


points  in  First  Pointed  structures. 
These  heads  were,  of  course, 
decorations,  but  the  corbels,  label- 
ends,  and  string-stops,  which 
supplied  their  raisons  d'etre  were 
so  exactly  adapted  to  their  forms, 
that  the  carver  could  work  as 
freely,  slnd  express  himself  as 
sincerely,  as  if  he  were  under  no 
conditions  but  those  of  tools  and 
material.  It  was  not  so  with 
capitals,  string  courses,  spandrels. 
There  the  structural  forms  modi- 
fied the  decorative,  and  the  sculp- 
tor's work  is  often  meaningless 
— as  expressive  art — without  the 
surrounding  architecture. 

The  justifying  cause  of  the  slowness  with  which  free  sculpture 
developed  in  pointed  Gothic  Architecture  has  been  well  put  ; 
"Gothic  Art,  having  found  its  theme  in  the  vertebrate  expres- 
sion of  stone  building,  refused  to  admit  any  discordant  phrase."^ 
Figure  sculpture  was  scarcely  ac- 
cepted as  part  of  their  scheme 
by  first  pointed  builders  at  all. 
At  Canterbury,  at  Chichester,  in 
the  great  buildings  of  the  north, 
it  does  not  exist.  Scarcely  a 
trace  of  it  is  to  be  found  north 
of  the  Humber  before  the  middle 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  It  was 
in  the  south  that  ambition  awoke, 
and  that  the  future  greatness  of 
English  Gothic  Sculpture  gave 
its  first  sign  in  those  splendid 
carved  heads  in  which  we  are 
still  so  rich.  "Destructions,  de- 
termined and  continuous,  have 
been  defacing  them  for  six  hun- 
dred years,  but  they  still  remain 
to  us  by  the  thousand,  and  the  fine  quality,  vivacity,   and  variety 

^ Prior,   E.  S.   and    Gardner,  A.;    "English    Mediaeval    Sculpture**    (.Architectural  Review, 

VokXIItoXVll). 

27.7 


FIG.  522. — THE   BROTHERS    OF    JOSEPH, 
SALISBURY   CATHEDRAL. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    523. — FIGURES,   WEST 
FRONT,  WELLS  CATHEDRAL. 


of  their  treatment  are  astonishing."  (Prior 
and  Gardner.)  In  the  great  majority  of 
cases  they  were  carved  in  situ,  the  stones 
being  already  buih  into  the  walls.  But  in 
certain  districts  a  good  many  occur  which 
were  supplied  to  the  masons  ready-made, 
having  been  carved  at  some  central  atelier 
out  of  the  local  stone.  By  the  ihiddle  of 
the  thirteenth  century  the  ability  of  the 
English  carver  was  thoroughly  developed, 
and  excellent  work  was  being  done  all 
over  the  country,  proving  that  English 
builders  had  a  plentiful  supply  of  native 
skill  and  knowledge  at  their  command. 
By  this  time  the  head-carving  had  fully 
developed  its  national  characteristics  of 
refinement  of  execution  and  delicacy  of 
sentiment,  and  had  been  supplemented  by  a  growing  ability  to  treat 
the  figure  as  a  whole.  Figure  sculpture  was  first  strictly  confined 
to  those  points  where  it  was  demanded  by  the  architecture  :  the 
corbels,  &c.,  already  referred  to,  bosses  (Fig.  520),  capitals,  where 

it  lived  in  some  discomfort,  and 
those  triangular  spaces  above 
the  shoulders  of  an  arch  which 
call  so  loudly  for  occupation 
(Figs.  521-22).  After  the 
heads,  the  next  specimens  of 
figure  sculpture  we  can  point  to 
are  in  these  same  spandrels,  the 
finest  examples  being  at  Lin- 
coln, Salisbury,  and  Westmin- 
ster Abbey.  At  Lincoln  and 
Westminster  the  spandrel  shape 
has  determined  the  character 
of  the  figures.  These  are  prac- 
tically restricted  to  angels,  whose 
wings  help  them  to  be  happy 
at  their  posts.  The  finer  angels 
at  Lincoln  are  equal  to  any- 
thing of  their  date  in  Europe, 
or  for  long  after  ;  while  the  best 
of    those    at    Westminster,  such 


FIG.    524. — FIGURES   ON   THE   GATEWAY  TO 
THE   CLOSE,   PETERBOROUGH. 


278 


SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD 


as  the  two  in  the  angles  of  the  north  tran- 
sept, are  scarcely  inferior.  The  figures  of 
soldiers  on  the  Easter  Sepulchre  at  Lincoln 
are  examples  of  the  same  style  at  its  happiest 
and  most  developed  moment  (Fig.  515). 
At  Salisbury  the  subjects  are  less  closely 
governed  by  the  architecture,  and  are,  in- 
deed, sometimes  quite  independently  con- 
ceived, e.g.^  the  group  of  "Lot  and  his 
Daughters,"  and  the  much  restored  but 
extraordinarily  fine  group  of  "Joseph's 
Brethren"  (Fig.  522).  The  central  dates 
of  all  these  are  for  Lincoln,  about  1240, 
for  Westminster,  about  1250,  and  for  Salis- 
bury, about  1270. 

So  far  as  quantity  goes,  the  greatest 
display  of  English  mediaeval  sculpture  is 
at  Wells.  Here  we  have  everything : 
corbel  and  label  heads,  capitals,  panels  in 
relief,  sunk  panels  with  heads  and  parts  of 
figures  in  the  round,  and  full  length  statues, 
standing  free.  Statue  carving  in  southern 
England  began  somewhat  abruptly,  but  in 
that  there  is  nothing  difficult  to  explain. 
The  sculptors  who  had  so  far  been  em- 
ployed on  decorative  work  had  acquired 
Quite  enough  skill  to  enable  them  to  supply 
the  new  demand  the  moment  it  arose.  On 
the  assumption  that  a  sudden  demand  must 
have  been  externally  met,  the  Wells  statues 
have  been  ascribed  to  French,  Italian,  and 
even  Greek  sculptors,  in  defiance  of  the 
fact  that  no  similar  work  can  be  pointed 
to  on  any  part  of  the  European  continent. 
No  evidence,  indeed,  of  any  kind  has  been 
discovered  to  suggest  that  the  work  is 
foreign,  unless,  indeed,  the  fact  that  a 
certain  number  of  figures  high  up  on  the 
West  Front  bear  Arabic  numerals  on  their 
backs,  can  be  called  so.  In  these  some 
writers  would  see  Italian  masons'  marks. 
But  Arabic  numerals  had  come  into  occa- 

279 


FIG.    525. — MADONNA, 
CHAPTER  HOUSE,   YORK. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  526. — TOMB  OF  ARCHBISHOP 
GRAY,  YORK 

(Purbeck  figure.) 


have  the  serene 
simpHcity  which 
distinguishes  the 
early  sculpture  of 
all  schools,  and, 
freely  conceived 
as  they  are,  they 
fit  into  and  carry 
on  the  spirit  of 
the  architecture 
which  enframes  them.  They  are  carved  from 
the  Doulting  stone  of  which  the  cathedral  is 
built.  Originally  their  total  number  seems  to 
have  been  about  255,  of  which  183  remain^; 
those  which  are  well  out  of  reach  being,  on 
the  whole,  in  fairly  good  condition.  In  type 
they  vary  decisively  from  the  figures  at  Lincoln 
and  Salisbury,  but  a  certain  affinity  can  be 
traced   with   the   two   figures  over   the  door  of 


sional  use  in  this  country  as  early 
as  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  which  is  not  too  late  for 
these  figures,  and  other  explana- 
tions of  their  presence  might  be 
given.  ^  The  absence  of  anything 
elsewhere  to  which  these  statues 
can  fairly  be  compared  is  evidence 
of  their  English  and  local  origin 
which  cannot  easily  be  refuted.  In 
character,      they 


FIG.  527. — FIGURE  IN 
HENRY  V.'S  CHANTRY, 
WESTMINSTER   ABBEY. 


FIG.    528.— TOMB   OF  ARCHBISHOP  PECKHAM,  CANTERBURY. 

(Wooden  figure.) 

280 


the  Westminster 
Chapter  House,  which 
illustrate  the  subject  of 
the  Annunciation. 

'  Prior  and  Gardner  suggest, 
for  instance,  that  these  statues 
were  moved  out  of  harm's  way 
while  the  towers  were  being 
built,  in  1380-1430,  and  num- 
bered in  order  to  secure  their 
return  to  their  right  places. 

^  Archaeologia,  vol.  Hx,  p. 
147. 


SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD 


After  Wells,  Exeter  has  the  richest 
display  of  sculpture  to  be  found  on 
any  English  Cathedral  (Fig.  85). 
Here  again  the  statues  are  carved 
from  a  local  stone,  which  has 
weathered  very  differently  from  that 
of  Wells.  At  Wells  the  statues  are 
mutilated,  but  sharp,  the  Doulting 
stone  breaking  more  readily  than  it 
dissolves.  At  Exeter  the  reverse  is 
the  case, 
with  the 
result      that 


FIG.    529. — TOMB   OF   EARL  AND 
COUNTESS   OF   ARUNDEL. 


FIG.    530. — PIETA.   BREAD- 
SALL,    DERBYSHIRE. 

(Alabaster.) 


those  tech- 
nical details  which  are  so  useful  in  deter- 
mining dates  and  origins  are  mostly  illegible. 
The  spirit  of  the  Exeter  work  is  quite  dis- 
tinct from  the  earlier  sculpture  at  Wells. 
It  is  mouvemente  and  dramatic  in  concep- 
tion, and  must  be  referred  to  some  artist  or 
school  of  artists  who  were  less  profoundly 
sympathetic  with 
architecture  than 
those  of  Wells.  In 
addition  to  these 
great  cathedral- 
families  of  statues, 
numerous  English 
churches  bear  wit- 


ness to  the  existence  of  a  widespread  school 
of  sculpture  throughout  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries,  although,  like  all  other 
activities,  it  shrank  and  cowered  for  a  time 
after  the  murderous  visitation  of  the  Black 
Death.  Good  sculpture  cannot  be  produced 
sporadically,  and  a  single  fragment  is  enough 
to  prove  that  where  it  was  carried  out  there 
must  once  have  been  much  more.  Such 
statues,  to  take  instances  at  random,  as  the 
Madonna  on  the  central  pillar  of  the  door- 
way to  the  Chapter  House  at  York 
Minster  (Fig.   525),   the  figures  on  Henry 

281 


FIG.    S3I. — BISHOP   FOUND 
AT   FLAWFORD,    NOTTS. 

(Alabaster.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  532. — THE  ANNUNCIA- 
TION. 

British  Museum. 
(Alabaster.) 


ducts  came  into  such  demand — partly,  no 
doubt,  through  royal  insistence — that  a 
regular  school  grew  up  around  them.  Be- 
ginning early  in  the 
second  half  of  the 
twelfth  century, 
orders  were  received 
from  many  parts  of 
England  for  shafts, 
capitals,  and  other 
decorative  members, 
as  well  as  for  statues, 
both  for  niches  and 


V.'s  chantry  (Fig.  527)  at  Westminster,  and 
those  over  the  main  doorway  of  Burford 
Church,  Oxfordshire,  imply  a  wide  and  long 
continued  development. 

A  most  important  phase  in  English  Gothic 
sculpture  was  that  brought  about  by  the 
existence  in  the  so-called  Island  of  Purbeck, 
in  Dorsetshire,  of  quarries  supplying  a  line, 
hard,  warmly  colored  shell-limestone,  capa- 
ble of  polish,  and  as 
decorative  as  a  good 
marble.  These  quar- 
ries belonged  to  the 
King,  and  were  in 
convenient  proximity 
to  the  royal  Castle  of 
Corfe.  The  result 
was   that   their   pro- 


ne.  533. — FIGURE  WITH 

MODEL    OF    A    CHURCH, 

FLAWFORD,    NOTTS. 

(Alabaster.) 


FIG.    534. — MADONNA, 
FLAWFORD,    NOTTS. 

(Alabaster.) 


tombs.  Purbeck  developed  a  style  of  its 
own,  so  that  for  a  century  and  a  half,  from 
II  75  to  1325,  the  marbler,  with  his  attend- 
ant polisher,  was  the  chief  nurse  of  our  native 
Gothic  sculpture,  Westminster  Abbey  and 
the  Temple  Church  are  rich  in  the  work 
of  the  Purbeck  marblers,  the  effigies  in  the 
Temple  including  both  early  and  late  ex- 
amples. Peterborough  has  the  tombs  of 
five  abbots  ;  Worcester  the  tomb  of  King 
John  (Fig.  545)  with  its  fine  recumbent 
282 


SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD 


FIG.    535. — TOMB   AT   HOLME-PIERREPOINT,   NOTTS. 

(Alabaster.) 


figure,  and  York  that  of 
Archbishop  Gray  (Fig. 
526). 

Early  in  the  fourteenth 
century  the  P  u  r  b  e  c  k 
fashion  died  out,  and  was 
succeeded  by  figures  in 
stone,  bronze,  alabaster, 
or  wood.  The  marblers 
seem  to  have  brought 
about  their  own  super- 
cession  by  the  common 
error  of  not  knowing 
where  to  stop.  Not 
content  with  the  polished 
Purbeck,  they  elaborated 
it  with  painting  and  gilding,  until  at  last  their  fine  material  was 
entirely  overlaid  and  hidden.  This  left  them  at  the  mercy  of  the 
stone  workers,  whose  figures,  when  similarly  decorated,  looked  as 
well  as  their  Purbeck  rivals  and  were  far  less  costly.  (Prior  and 
Gardner.) 

The  completion  of  the  Wells  sculpture  and  the  decaying  vogue 
of  the  Purbeck  ateliers  threw  a  large  number  of  statue  makers  on 
the  country  at  large.  These  men  dispersed  to  various  centres,  and 
the  greater  homogeneity  which  marks  English  Gothic  sculpture  after 
about  1300  may  have  been  due  in  some  degree  to  their   influence. 

The  eclipse  of  the  Purbeck  marblers,  then,  was  brought  about  by 
the  ability  of  workers  in 
cheaper  substances  to  rival 
their  effects.  The  super- 
seding materials  were  free- 
stone and  wood,  and  the 
chief  centre  at  which  these 
were  employed  appears  to 
have  been  London.  From 
the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century  onward  the  capital 
supplied  much  of  the  sculpt- 
ure required  and  more  or 
less  controlled  its  character. 
Varieties  of  style  can,  of 
course,  be  traced,  from  the 


283 


FIG.    536. — TOMB   OF   SIR  RALPH  GREEN, 
LOWICK,    NORTHANTS. 

(Alabaster.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    537. HOLME-PIERREPOINT,    NOTTS. 

(Alabaster.) 


reposeful  attitudes  and  sharply 
cut  plaited  draperies  of  the  Wells 
school  to  the  free  action  and 
billowy  folds  of  some  northern 
and  eastern  centres.  But  a 
London  parallel  for  any  provin- 
cial accent  can  nearly  always  be 
found.  Among  the  freestone 
statues,  either  made  in  London  or 
under  its  influence,  may  be  named 
the  figures  of  the  Eleanor  Cross 
at  Northampton,  which  were 
carved  in  London  by  one  William 
of  Ireland  in  1290,  a  recumbent 
and  much  damaged  knight  at  Aldworth,  Berks,  which  curiously 
echoes  Michelangelo's  conception  of  Adonis  ;  the  statues  of  the 
Lady  Aveline,  of  her  husband,  Crouchback,  Earl  of  Lancaster,  and 
of  Aymer  de  Valence,  at  Westminster ;  of  Lady  Fitzalan  at 
Chichester,  and  the  Burghersh  tomb,  at  Lincoln. 

Among  the  many  scores  of  wooden  figures  which  still  exist, 
scattered  all  over  England,  the  finest,  probably,  is  that  of  Archbishop 
Peckham,  at  Canterbury  (Fig.  528).  Westminster  Abbey  has  the 
figure  of  William  de  Valence  (in  which  a  wooden  core  supports  a 
copper  skin)  and  the  rude  core  of  what  was  once,  probably,  a 
magnificent  effigy  of  Henry  V. 

The  fashion  of  alabaster  figures  was  a  later  development,  but  lasted 
longer  and  spread  more  widely  than  any  of  the  others.     More  than 

500  specimens  have  been 
catalogued.  It  had  its 
origin  in  the  existence  of 
rich  deposits  of  the  mate- 
rial known  as  English 
alabaster  all  across  the 
country,  from  southern 
Lincolnshire  to  Stafford- 
shire. These  appear  to 
have  been  often  drawn 
upon  for  the  sculptor  be- 
fore the  great  develop- 
ment of  the  tomb-figure 

536.— ruMB  IN  SOUTHWELL  CATHEDRAL.  mduStry       b  C  g  a  tt  .  A 

(Alabaster.)  c  u  r  i  o  u  s  Mantegnesque 

284 


SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD 


FIG.    539. — TOMB. 

(Alabaster.) 


Pieta  (Fig.  530),  a  series  of  figurines  (Figs.  531,  533-34)  and 
reliefs  (Fig.  532)  have  come  down  to  us,  some  of  which  are 
beautiful.  The  docile  material 
put  no  difficulty  in  the  sculp- 
tor's way,  which  was  not 
entirely  an  advantage.  A 
great  school  of  what  were 
called  "  Alablasters  "  sprang 
up,  and  for  several  genera- 
tions met  a  large  part  of  the 
demand  for  sepulchral  effigies, 
not  only  in  England,  but  also 
on  the  Continent,  and,  in 
another  direction,  as  far  as 
Iceland.  Its  results  were  but 
little  above  the  industrial  level, 
as  a  rule.  A  few  are  real 
works  of  art,  but  the  majority  are  so  designed  as  to  awake  a  suspicion 
that  the  ateliers  charged  for  their  products  according  to  weight  ! 
The  list  of  **  alablasters  "  seems  never  to  have  included  a  sculptor 
of  any  really  free  imagination.  To  be  sure,  no  worse  school  of 
design  in  the  round  could  be  suggested,  perhaps,  than  one  which 
involved  the  constant  manufacture  of  recumbent  figures  of  men  in 
armor.  Among  the  best  which  have  come  down  to  us  may 
be  named  the  effigy  of  John  of 
Eltham,  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
the  figure  of  William  Fettiplace, 
in  Swinbrook  Church,  Oxford- 
shire, and  the  various  works  figured 
in  these  pages  (Figs.  535-540), 
especially  the  fine  and  really 
artistic  statue  of  Edward  II. 
at  Gloucester  (Fig.  540),  and  the 
figure  of  a  knight  at  Holme  Pierre- 
point  (Fig.  535). 

Metal  working  of  all  kinds  flour- 
ished in  Gothic  England,  as  the 
records  prove,  although  so  few  of  its 
results  can  now  be  pointed  to.  Eng- 
lish goldsmiths,  like  those  of  other 

countries,    extended    their   operations    to    the   production   of   bronze 
statues   and   figurines,    to    the   casing   of   those   in   wood,    and    the 

283 


FIG.    540. — HEAD    OF   EDW.4RD   II. 
GLOUCESTER. 

(Alabaster.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    541. — HEAD   OF   RICHARD   II. 
WESTMINSTER   ABBEY. 

(Bronze:   from  a  cast.) 

ary  in  modelling,  while 
even  the  Richard  II.  (Figs. 
54 1 ,  543)  and  his  queen, 
Anne  of  Bohemia,  are  in- 
ferior to  the  Eleanor  and 
the  Henry.  The  small 
figurines  which  used  to 
form  a  complete  cortege  of 
weepers  round  these  Gothic 
tombs    are    often    freer    in 


decoration,  by  various  devices,  of  those 
in  stone  and  marble.  And,  unlike 
the  workers  in  these  latter  materials, 
their  names  have  not  been  entirely 
forgotten.  The  fame  of  one  English 
family  of  bronze  workers,  at  least, 
has  persisted.  These  were  the  Torels, 
who  worked  In  London  as  goldsmiths 
for  the  better  part  of  a  century.  In 
the  year  1291  "William  Torel, 
aurifaber,"  was  paid  the  sum  of 
£113.  6.  8.  for  three  bronze  figures, 
including  those  of  Queen  Eleanor  (Fig. 
542)  and  of  Henry  III.  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  These  are  the  finest  of  the 
Abbey  bronzes.  The  later  Edward  III. 
(Fig.  544)  is  curiously  stiff  and  element- 


FIG.    542. — FitSURE   OF  QUEEN   ELEANOR. 
(WILLIAM    TOREL.)     WESTMINSTER   ABBEY. 

(Bronze:   from  a  cast.) 


FIG.    543. — FIGURES   OF   RICHARD   II.    AND   HIS  QUEEN, 
WESTMINSTER   ABBEY. 

(Bronze.) 


286 


conception   than   the 
main  effigies. 

The  later  phases 
of  Gothic  architect- 
ure were  nearly  as 
bare  of  free  sculpt- 
ure as  the  earliest. 
The  **  alablasters," 
whose  productions 
held  the  field  until 
the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, superseded  the 
local  and  London 
imagers,    while    the 


SCULPTURE-FIRST  PERIOD 


countless  niches  provided  by 
the  workers  in  perpendic- 
ular Gothic  seem,  in  many 
cases,  to  have  been  left 
unfilled,  and,  in  others,  to 
have  been  occupied  by 
figures  scarcely  higher  in  the 
artistic  scale  than  those  sup- 
plied by  the  modern  purveyors  of  fonts,  pulpits,  lecterns,  and  other 
church  furniture. 


FIG.    544. — FIGURE   OF   EDWARD   ITI, 
WESTMINSTER   ABBEY.       (BfOnze.) 


For  Bibliography,  see  end  of  Chapter  XXI. 


1 

FIG.    545. — TOMB   OF   KING   JOHN,    WORCESTER. 

(Purbeck  marble.) 


287 


FIG.    546. — CENOTAPH   OF    WELLINGTON.       (ALFRED    STEVENS.)       ST.    PAUL'S. 

CHAPTER  XX 
SCULPTURE-MIDDLE  PERIOD 

The  practice  of  sculpture  as  a  Fine  Art  ceased  in  England  for 
several  generations  after  the  final  extinction  of  our  Gothic 
School.  The  active  demand  for  sepulchral  effigies,  which  has  been 
as  continuous  a  feature  of  our  national  life  as  that  for  painted 
portraits,  was  met  by  the  alablasters.  Although  some  of  these  showed 
considerable  artistic  power,  their  activity  on  the  whole  was  organized 
on  commercial  rather  than  aesthetic  lines,  and  tended  to  discourage 
rather  than  to  promote  the  re-birth  of  sculpture  in  its  highest  form. 
The  first  man  to  show  much  individuality,  and  to  bring  back  some 
small  modicum  of  vitality  to  the  art,  was  Nicholas  Stone  ( 1 586- 
1647),  who  would,  however,  have  described  himself  as  a  mason 
rather  than  as  a  sculptor.  He  studied  for  a  time  at  Amsterdam, 
under  the  son  of  Hendrik  de  Keyser,  the  famous  sculptor,  whose 
granddaughter  he  married.  Returning  to  England,  he  did  much 
work  at  the  Royal  Palaces,  in  London  and  Edinburgh,  and  as 
a  mason  executed  several  of  Inigo  Jones's  designs.  The  porch 
of  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  usually  ascribed  to  Jones  (Fig.  1 77), 
was  almost  certainly  both  designed  and  carried  out  by  Stone,  to 
whom,  also,  must  be  credited  the  beautiful  gates  of  the  Physic,  or 
Botanical  Garden,  in  the  same  University.  Several  tombs  in 
Westminster  Abbey  are  by  him,  also  the  statue  of  Dr.  Donne  in 

288 


SCULPTURE-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.    547. — JAMES   II.       (gRINLING 
GIBBONS.)       ST.    J.AMES'S    PARK. 


his  winding  sheet  in  St.  Paul's.  One 
of  his  best  monuments  is  that  of  Sir 
Julius  Ccesar,  in  great  Saint  Helen's. 
Stone  is  one  of  the  few  early  artists 
who  have  left  documents  :  his  ac- 
count book  is  in  the  Soane  Museum. 
His  eldest  son,  Henry,  was  the 
painter  known  as  "  Old  Stone  "  (see 
page  169).  Stone  left  a  pupil  or 
assistant  who  must  be  noticed.  This 
was  Caius  Gabriel  Gibber  (1630- 
1 700),  a  native  of  Flensborg,  in 
Holstein,  who  is  best  known  as  the 
maker  of  the  two  figures  in  "  Bed- 
lam," Me/anc/io/t/  and  Ravins  Mad- 
ness (Fig.  348).  He  was  also  em- 
ployed at  Ghatsworth,  and  made  the 
Phoenix  over  the  south  door  of  St. 
Paul's,  as  well  as  the  panel  in  relief  on  the  west  side  of  Wren's 
Monument  of  London.  Gibber  married  one  Jane  Golley,  and  by 
her  became  father  of  Golley  Gibber. 

The  first  English  sculptor  to  work  freely  and  expressively  in  the 
Renaissance  spirit  was  Grinling  Gibbons,  to  whose  merit  Fame, 
even  now,  has  done  but  scanty  justice.  He  was  born  in  Holland  of 
English  parents.  As  an  artist  he  showed  a  combination  of  designing 
power  with  patience  and  technical  skill  which  would  have  carried 
him  far  with  better  opportunities.  As  a  decorator  his  best  perform- 
ances are  to  be  found  at  Ghatsworth,  Petworth,  Burghley,  in  St. 
Paul's,  London,  and  in  Trinity  Gollege,  Oxford  (Fig.  180).  His 
statue  of  James  II., 
which  has  been  moved 
within  the  last  few 
years  from  its  original 
site  behind  the  Ban- 
queting House  into 
St.  James's  Park,  is 
one  of  the  finest 
bronzes  in  Europe 
(Fig.  547).  Gibbons 
designed  and  executed 
the    pedestal    for    the 

f      y^l  1  TT  FIG.    548. — "melancholy        and        RAVING   MADNESS.' 

statue   ot   v^naries   11.  (gibber.)   bethlehem  hospital. 

289  U 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


in  the  great  quadrangle  of  Windsor 
Castle,  and  may  possibly  have  sup- 
plied sketches  for  the  beautiful  pedestal 
of  Le  Sueur's  Charles  I.,  at  Charing 
Cross,  which  was  carried  out,  however, 
by  one  Marshall  (Cust).  A  great  deal  of 
wood  carving  is  ascribed  to  him  without 
evidence  and  against  the  probabilities. 

Cibber  and  Gibbons  were  both  more 
or  less  responsible  for  Francis  Bird 
(1667-1731),  a  native  of  London,  who, 
after  a  boyhood  spent  abroad,  set  him- 
self to  profit  by  the  example  of  the 
two  older  artists. 


FIU.    549. COLLEif   CIBBER. 

(Unknown.)    Colored  terra  cotta. 
National  Portrait  Gallery. 


Bird's  produc- 
tions have  been 
the  victims  of 
indiscriminate 
abuse.  His  statue  of  Queen  Anne  in  front  of 
St.  Paul's  was  a  butt  for  nearly  two  centuries, 
and  yet  Belt's  copy  shows  that  it  was  by  no 
means  destitute  of  artistic  balance  and  unity. 
His  great  relief  in  the  pediment  over  the 
west  door  shows  errors  of  taste,  in  its  stone 
rays  of  sunlight  and  over-picturesque  treat- 
ment  gener- 
ally, but  the 
single  figures 
on  the  same 
front  are  very 
good,  as,  also. 


FIG.    550. — DR.   JOHNSON. 
(bacon.)       ST.    PAUL'S. 


FIG.    SSI.— GEORGE   III.      (WYATT.) 
COCKSPUR   STREET. 

Bronze. 


is    his    Dr.    Busby    in    Westminster 
Abbey. 

All  these  men  were  more  or  less 
inspired  by  the  decorative  impulse 
characteristic  of  the  Renaissance. 
Their  draperies  were  vehicles  for 
much  play  of  light  and  shadow  ;  the 
movement  of  their  figures  was  rather 
complex  than  simple,  and  oppor- 
tunities for  the  introduction  of  orna- 
ment were  sought  after  rather  than 
290 


SCULPTURE-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.   552. — SAMUEL  WILBERFORCE. 
(S.  JOSEPH.)  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY. 


avoided.  This  tendency  was  now  to 
be  abandoned  for  one  in  the  opposite 
direction,  and  EngUsh  sculpture  was  to 
strip  itself  deliberately  of  all  those  aids 
which  might,  if  properly  used,  have 
enabled  it  to  rise  to  a  level  not  unworthy 
of  English  painting.  A  classical  severity 
is  admirable  in  a  Greek  climate  and  a 
Greek  society  where  constant  familiarity 
with  the  naked  human  figure  at  its  best 
breeds  a  sense  of  structure,  form  and 
texture  which  is  not  to  be  learnt  from 
a  few  tame  specimens  in  a  studio.  For 
artists  working  under  the  conditions  of 
England  in  the  eighteenth  century,  classic 
ideas  were  fatal.  They  meant  giving  up 
everything  on  which  the  sculptor  had  relied  as  vehicles  for  self-ex- 
pression, and  receiving  in  return  the  mere  shadow  of  a  knowledge 
which  is  useless  until  it  is  complete. 

Four  sculptors  may  be  chosen  as  typical  of  the  whole  during  this 
period  of  what  was  fondly  believed  to  be  classical  purity  and 
restraint.  They  were  Thomas  Banks,  Joseph  Nollekens,  John 
Bacon,  and  John  Flaxman.  Banks  (1735-1805)  was  the  first 
English  sculptor  to  depend  on  a  Grecian  elegance  to  give  charm 
to  his  art.  Nollekens  (1737-1823),  a  Low-Countryman  by 
extraction,  had  the  same  predilections,  but  a  happy  fate  compelled 
him  to  spend  most  of  his  time  in  making  busts.  Into  these  he 
contrived  to  pour  no  little  vitality  in  spite  of  his  neglect  of  detail. 
By  John  Bacon  (1 740-1 799)— the  first  Academy  student  to 
receive  a  gold  medal  for  sculpt- 
ure from  the  first  of  the  P.R.A.'s 
— the  best  work  extant  is,  prob- 
ably, the  statue  of  Johnson  (Fig. 
550)  in  St.  Paul's.  The  move- 
ment is  appropriate  and  coherent, 
the  drapery  well  cast  and  near 
enough  to  the  Roman  spirit. 
Bacon  had  also  some  facility  as 
a  purely  decorative  sculptor,  as 
his  monument  of  Lord  Halifax, 

in    Westminster    Abbey      shows,  ^^^  ^^.-o^tram.    (folev.)  Calcutta 

Flaxman      (1755-1826),     fol-  Bronze. 

291  u  2 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


fig.  554. — athlete  and  python. 

(leighton.) 

Tate  Gallery.    Bronze. 


lowing  the  law  which  appears  to  govern 
revivals,  went  farther  back  for  his 
ideals,  and  took  the  Greek  spirit  for 
his  inspiration.  His  art,  although  often 
playful  in  conception,  was  too  severe 
in  form  for  popularity,  or,  indeed,  for 
use,  and  the  commissions  he  won  were 
not  in  proportion  to  his  fame.  He  is 
now  remembered  chiefly  for  his  outline 
illustrations  to  Homer,  /Eschylus,  Dante, 
&c.,  which  are  based  on  the  art  of  the 
Greek  vase-painters.  A  good  example 
of  his  sculpture  is  the  monument  to 
Lord  Mansfield  in  Westminster  Abbey. 
The  mourning  youth  at  the  back  shows 
his  technique  at  its  best.  But  Flax- 
man,  like  the  rest  of  the  Classicizers, 
did  not  realize  that  for  the  sculptor, 
above  all  men,  the  motto  should  be  "  thorough."  The  simplicity 
of  the  Greek  satisfies  because  it  barely  veils  profound  knowl- 
edge, that  of  his  imitator  leaves  us  cold  because  we  have  a 
sense  of  emptiness  behind.  I  may  illustrate  this  by  a  comparison 
which,  I  hope,  will  not  seem  frivolous.  Such  a  statue  as  the 
kneeling   boy   of    Subiaco    (Thermae,    Rome)    compares   with    the 

best  productions  of  Flaxman 
as  a  miniature  by  Cooper,  or 
Smart,  compares  with  the  best 
to  be  found  in  a  modern  ex- 
hibition. The  old  miniaturists 
learnt  to  be  artists;  they  learnt 
to  draw  and  paint  the  human 
figure  no  less  thoroughly  than 
the  picture  painters  ;  with  the 
result  that,  when  they  simplified 
and  generalized,  they  did  not 
become  empty  and  "  cheap." 
Their  modern  successors  learn 
merely  to  paint  miniatures,  and 
a  glance  is  sufficient  to  show 
that  knowledge  does  not  breathe 
through  their  masks.  Nothing 
could    be    simpler,    freer    from 


FIG.    555. — BISHOP   PHILPOT.      (BROCK.) 
WORCESTER. 


292 


SCULPTURE-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.    556. — CENOTAPH  OF  LORD    LEIGHTON. 

(brock.)    ST.  Paul's.    Bronze  and  marble. 


accent  or  detail,  than  the  Subiaco 
boy,  and  yet  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  the  mind  which 
created  it  knew  all  there  was  to 
be  known  about  the  texture  and 
artistic  anatomy  of  the  human 
body.  From  Flaxman  and  all 
the  other  English  Classicizers 
from  Banks  to  Gibson — and,  for 
that  matter,  from  those  of  Italy, 
France,  Germany,  and  Denmark 
— we  get  no  such  impression. 
We  see  they  have  been  captured  by  the  outward  beauty  of  Greek 
sculpture,  and  have  set  out  to  imitate  it  without  first  mastering 
the  knowledge  from  which  it  sprang.  Of  all  the  fine  arts  sculpture 
is  that  which  requires  the  completest  and  profoundest  knowledge 
of  its  bases.  The  sculptor's  means  of  expression  are  so  restricted, 
when  compared  to  those  of  the  painter,  that  he  can  afford  to 
dispense  with  nothing  which  is  at 
once  within  the  legitimate  boun- 
daries of  his  metier  and  capable 
of  enforcing  his  idea.  It  is  sig- 
nificant that  the  only  bearable 
sketch  in  sculpture  is  one  based 
on  movement  and  structure.  The 
mind  accepts  such  a  sketch,  know- 
ing instinctively  that  its  successful 
achievement  implies  the  power  to 
bring  the  whole  adventure  to  a 
happy  conclusion. 

The  first  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  England  saw  many 
sculptors  at  work,  and,  on  the 
whole,  not  a  little  patronage  ex- 
tended to  them.  But  their  pro- 
ductions were  characterized,  with 
hardly  an  exception,  by  neglect  of 
the  more  expressive  qualities  of 
their  art  and  the  cultivation  of  an 
artificial  simplicity  which  meant 
nothing  at  all.  Good  conceptions 
were    left,    as    it    were,    buried    in 

293 


FIG.  557. — THE  BLACK  PRINCE. 
(brock.)   LEEDS. 

Bronze. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


the  marble,  for  the  want  of  modelling.  Such 
statues  as  the  two  Eves  by  E.  H.  Baily,  or 
the  so-called  Tinted  Venus,  by  John  Gibson, 
would  have  been  respectable  works  of  art  if 
their  modelling  had  been  carried  far  enough. 
That  they  were  left  as  we  see  them  was  not 
so  much  the  result  of  incapacity  as  of  a 
mistaken  theory  as  to  the  limits  of  sculpture 
and  a  misreading  of  Greek  simplicity.  The 
best  known  sculptors  of  this  unhappy  period 
were  Sir  Francis  Chan  trey  (1781-1842), 
whose  busts  are  often  excellent ;  Sir  Richard 
Westmacott  (1775-1856),  Samuel  Joseph 
(Died  in  1850),  who  has  left  two  fine  statues, 
Wilkie,  in  the  National  Gallery,  and  Samuel 

FIG.  558. — GAINSBOROUGH.  1Xr.11        £  /C  CCO\  *  \Y/      i       '        ^ 

(BROCK)  Wdherforce     (rig.      DDZ)     m      Westmmster 

Tate  Gallery.  Abbey;     Patrick     Macdowell    (1799-1870), 

James  Wyatt  (1795-1850),  E.  H.  Baily 
(1788-1866),  and  John  Gibson  (1790-1866).  Better,  when 
at  his  best,  than  any  of  these  was  John  Henry  Foley  (1818-1874), 
whose  Outram,  at  Calcutta  (Fig.  553),  Goldsmith,  Burke,  and 
Grattan,  in  Dublin,  and  the  often  un- 
fairly abused  Prince  Consort  in  Hyde 
Park,  are  good  if  not  exactly  inspired 
works. 

Foley's  influence  persisted  after  his 
death  in  the  work  of  Lord  Leighton 
and  Mr.  Thomas  Brock.  By  the  former 
we  have  two  statues,  both  in  the  Tate 
Gallery,  An  Athlete  struggling  with  a 
Python  (Fig.  554),  and  The  Slug^ 
gard;  by  the  latter,  a  number  of  groups 
and  statues,  in  which  a  high  standard  is 
reached  with  singular  precision.  The 
Black  Prince  (Fig.  557)  at  Leeds,  the 
Moment  of  Peril,  Eve  and  Gains- 
borough (Fig.  558),  in  the  Tate  Gallery, 
the  Bishop  Philpot,  at  Worcester  (Fig. 
555),  the  cenotaph  of  Lord  Leighton  in 
St.  Paul's  (Fig.  556),  the  Robert  Raikes 
on  the  Victoria  Embankment,  and  the 
Queen  Victoria  on  the  last  coinage  of 

294 


V 

fig.  ssq. wellington  monu- 
ment,   (alfred  stevens.)  st. 
Paul's. 
Bronze  and  marble. 


SCULPTURE-MIDDLE  PERIOD 


FIG.    560. — TRUTH. 
(ALFRED    STEVENS.) 

(From  the  model  for  the  Wellington 
Monument.) 


her  reign,  are  all  good  sculpture  and 
show  a  versatility  which  is  rare.  Two 
other  sculptors  of  some  capacity  who 
may  be  classed  with  these  were  the  pre- 
Raphaelite  Thomas  Woolner  (1825- 
1892)  and  George  Armstead.  (1828- 
1905).  Armstead's  best  things,  perhaps, 
are  his  tomb  of  Lord  Winmarleish  and 
the  inner  doorway  of  the  Holborn 
Restaurant,  in  London. 

The  greatest  English  artist  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  a  sculptor,  and 
a  sculptor  whose  early  training  was  ob- 
tained in  the  very  sanctuary  of  those 
barren  principles  which  led  to  nullity  in 
all  but  the  strongest  hands.  Alfred 
Stevens  (1818-1875)  was  a  pupil  of 
Thorwaldsen,  into  whose  studio  in  Rome 
he  was  admitted  at  a  very  early  age. 
His  genius,  happily,  was  so  robust,  and  his  curiosity  about  every- 
thing connected  with  art  so  unsleeping,  that  he  was  in  no  danger  of 
being  run  into  the  moulds  of  other  men.  He  really  educated 
himself  as  sculptor,  as  painter,  as 
architect,  as  ornemaniste.  Returning 
to  England  while  still  young  he  ac- 
cepted any  task  which  involved  the 
use  of  his  knowledge,  teaching  in  art 
schools,  designing  fire  irons,  decorating 
houses.  His  opportunity  came  with 
the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
when,  after  all  the  usual  vicissitudes 
which  attend  a  competition,  he  was 
commissioned  to  execute  his  monument. 
Up  to  that  moment  he  was  practically 
unknown,  but  the  fame  of  what  he 
was  doing  in  his  retired  studio  soon 
brought  him  a  small  coterie  of  friends 
and  a  few  commissions  to  give  variety 
to  his  labors.  He  died  in  1875, 
leaving  his  great  work  still  incomplete. 
The  general  conception  of  the  Welling- 
ton monument  is  based  on  the  canopy 

295 


FIG.    561. — VALOUR. 
(ALFRED    STEVENS.) 

(From  the  model  for  the  Wellington 
Monument.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.  562. — PROPOSED   MEMORIAL 

TO   THE    1851    EXHIBITION. 

(ALFRED    STEVENS.) 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 


tombs  of   the  Italian  Renaissance  and, 
more  immediately,  on  Mary  Stuart's  tomb 
in  Westminster  Abbey.    But  Stevens  has 
far  excelled  his  models  in  the  coherence 
and  unity  of  his  general  scheme  as  well 
as  in  the  grand  design  of  his  groups  and 
figures.    To  find  anything  better  than  his 
Fa/our  (Fig.  56 1 ),  and  Truth  (Fig.  560), 
we    must    turn    to    the    greatest    of    all 
imaginative   sculptors,    to   Michelangelo 
himself,  while  in  its  union  of  dignity  with 
decorative  value  the  effigy  of  Welling- 
ton   with     its    supporting    sarcophagus 
(Fig.   559)   is  quite  unsurpassed.     The 
other     works     of     Stevens     include     a 
splendid     sketch     (Fig.     562)     for     a 
memorial    to    the    1851    Exhibition,    to 
which     Durham's     commonplace     pro- 
duction, now  hidden  away  behind  the 
Albert    Hall,    was    preferred  ;    designs 
for    the    decoration    of    the    domes    of 
St.    Paul's    and    the    British    Museum 
Reading  Room  ;    the  sculptural  decorations  of  Dorchester  House, 
including  two  beautiful  Caryatid  figures  (Fig.  563)  ;    and  numerous 
designs     for     metal-workers     and     other 
industrials.     Stevens     was     one     of     the 
small     band     of     artists     whose     every 
scribble  is  of  value.     The  Tate  Gallery 
possesses  a  good  collection  of  what  may 
be  called  his  remains,  including  his  car- 
toon   for    the    mosaic  of    Isaiah    in    St. 
Paul's,    five    other    oil    pictures,    and    a 
number    of    drawings    and    sketches.     In 
one   respect,    too,   he   was   an   innovator, 
for  to  him  belongs  the  credit  of  having 
invented    that    peculiar    form    of    design, 
depending  on  a  system  of  abstract  curves 
("  squirms  "),  which  has  since  been  carried 
so  far  by  Mr.  Alfred  Gilbert  and  others, 
and  is  really  the  foundation  of  what  is 
now  called  Vart  nouveau. 

The    last    sculptor    to    be    mentioned 
296 


FIG.  563. CARYATID    IN   DOR- 
CHESTER   HOUSE. 
(ALFRED    STEVENS.) 


SCULPTURE-MIDDLE  PERIOD 

in  this  chapter  belongs  in  some  ways  to  a  later  development. 
For  although  G.  F.  Watts  had  reached  a  patriarchal  age  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  his  work  in  the  round  is  distinguished 
by    the    almost    picturesque    freedom    inaugurated    by    Carpeaux 


riG.    564. VITAL    ENERGY.       (o.    F.    WATTS.)       KENSINGTON    GARDENS. 

Bronze. 


and  his  followers,  .rather  than  by  the  comparatively  "  tight " 
methods  of  his  own  English  contemporaries).  As  a  sculptor  he 
studied,  indeed,  under  Behnes,  but  his  real  master  was 
Phidias,  and  his  school  the  pediments  of  the  Parthenon. 
His  best  works  as  a  sculptor  are  the   Clutie,  of  which   the  Tate 

297 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


Gallery  has  a  bronze,  the  Vital  Energy,  in  Kensington  Gardens, 
the  magnificent  equestrian  group  of  Hugh  Lupus,  at  Eaton  Hall, 
and  the  monument  to  Lord  Lothian. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  wished  that  a  replica  of  the  Eaton  Hall  group 
might  be  set  up  in  London,  Fortune  has  been  unkind  to  the 
metropolis  in  dealing  out  to  her  the  inferior  works  of  her  own 
sculptors,  and  in  banishing  their  successes  to  the  provinces  and 
the  colonies.  The  reason,  perhaps,  is  to  be  sought  in  the  fact  that 
artists  have  their  hands  freer  when  working  for  provincial  or  colonial 
employers  than  when  a  committee  of  taste  is  waiting  round  the 
corner  to  watch  what  they  do  and  to  pull  them  up  if  they  set  foot 
outside  the  boundaries  of  the  commonplace. 


FIG.    565. — HUGH   LUPUS,    EARL   OF   CHESTER.      (WATTS.) 

From  the  model. 


For  Bibliography,   see  end  of  Chapter  XXI. 


298 


jimiiiMiwi 

fl^gi^^^^^^^ 

m^^-                      ill 

.  *i»s«*. 

rr*rr-..    1 

^Kj^^^^^^^^^/^^Jm'' 

ill'  MiF  ill  1/  I^^^^^^^jSIe^vi  '          -*^^^^  *  ^ 

FIG.  566. — RETABLE,  ST.  ALBANS'  CATHEDRAL.      (ALFRED  GILBERT.) 


CHAPTER  XXI 


SCULPTURE-PRESENT  DAY 

Few  things,  as  a  rule,  are  more  difficult  to  trace  than  the  real  origin 
of  any  movement  in  the  Fine  Arts.  The  usual  method  is  to  be  satis- 
fied with  the  working  hypothesis  of  post  hoc,  propter  hoc,  and 
to  conclude  that  the  earlier  in  date  of  any  two  similar  developments 
must  have  been  the  cause  of  the  later.  That  such  a  line  of  argument 
has  often  led  to  wrong  conclusions  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  show. 
As  our  present  business,  however,  is  with  an  instance  of  its  validity, 
the  point  need  not  be  insisted  on.  Few  lines  of  artistic  affiliation 
are  clearer  than  that  which  connects  the  latest  phase  in  English 
sculpture  with  our  neighbors'  school  of  a  generation  ago.  Down 
to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  French  sculpture,  al- 
though much  more  accomplished  than  English,  was  affected  by  the 
same  misreading  of  Greek  and  Graeco-Roman  examples.  It  analyzed 
effects  and  reduced  their  causes  to  a  body  of  principles,  failing  to 
understand  that  Greek  art  seems  objective  only  because  it  was  the 
outcome  of  a  homogeneous  society  which  had  no  temptation  to  be 
insincere.  The  Greek  sculptor  was  really  little  less  subjective  than 
Rembrandt.  To  invert  his  inspiration,  and  make  him  the  follower 
of  a  priori  laws  instead  of  their  unwitting  creator,  was  to  transform 
him  from  a  stimulant  into  an  incubus. 

299 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


The  revolt  came  from  the  same 
forces  as  the  romantic  movement  in 
literature,  the  chief  originator  being 
Carpeaux,  a  man  of  genius  although 
not  always  a  man  of  taste.  His  pupil, 
or  at  least  disciple,  Jules  Dalou,  driven 
from  Paris  by  the  consequences  of  the 
war   of    1870,   came   to   England   and 

taught 
for  years 
in  the 
Lon  don 
studios; 
taught 
and  talk- 
ed, and 
awaken- 
ed   the 


FIG.    567. — TEUCER.      (hAMO 
THORNYCROFT.) 

(Tate  Gallery.     Bronze.) 


FIG.  568. — ARTEMIS.       EATON  HALL. 
(hAMO   THORNYCROFT.) 


with  the  hills  and  valleys  of  the  human  skin 
they  began  to  explore  and  master  the 
machinery  it  covered.  Once  the  means  of 
expression  thus  put  in  their  hands,  they 
were  in  a  fair  way  to  express  their  own 
ideas,  whatever  their  value.  So  that  at 
last  the  one  serious  foundation  of  equipment, 
plus  sincerity,  was  arrived  at. 
The  first  of  the  younger  school  to  step 

300 


young  Englishmen  who  came  under 
his  influence  to  the  effect  of  the 
shallow  training  and  misconstrued 
classical  tradition  which  had  been 
depriving  their  national  art  of  all 
vitality.  He 
offered  them 
structure  and 
movement  for 
the  foundation 
of  their  knowl- 
edge. Instead 
of  acquiring  a 
superficial  ac- 
quaintance 


FIG.  569. — GENERAL  GORDON. 
(hAMO   THORNYCROFT.) 
TRAFALGAR    SQUARE. 

Bronze. 


SCULPTURE-PRESENT  DAY 


out  of  the  ranks  was  Hamo 
Thomycroft.  He  was  an  enfant 
de  la  balle,  for  both  his  father 
and  mother  were  sculptors  be- 
fore him.  His  first  works  to 
attract  attention  were  the  Artemis 
(Fig.  368)  and  the  Teucer  (Fig. 
567).  The  latter  was  exhibited 
in  1881,  and  at  once  made  a 
sensation.  It  may  be  said  to 
have  in- 
augura  t  e  d 
the  new 
moveme  n  t, 
with  its 
thorough 
modelling 
and  tense 
vitality.     It 


FIG.    570. — EDWARD    I.      (HAMO 
THORNYCROFT.) 

Plaster. 


FIG.  571. — THE  MOWER. 
(hamo  THORNYCROFT.) 

Liverpool  Gallery. 
Bronze. 


was  followed  by  a  long  procession  of  statues 
in  which  no  positive  failure  is  numbered. 
They  include  such  fine 
things  as  the  Gordon 
(Fig.  369),  the  Mower 
(Fig.  371),  the  Bishop 
Goodwin,  at  Carlisle,  the 
model  for  an  Edward  I. 
(Fig.  370),  never  exe- 
cuted, the  absurdly  placed 
Cromwell,  at  Westmin- 
in    the   Strand,    with    its 


ster,  the  Gladstone, 
appropriately  vociferous  but  perhaps  over-ener- 
getic acolytes,  and  the  Bishop  Creighton  (Fig. 
372),  in  St.  Paul's. 

Next  to  Mr.  Thomycroft,  the  work  of  the 
late  E.  Onslow  Ford  may  be  mentioned.  His 
education  was  a  little  cosmopolitan.  His  first 
work  to  attract  much  notice  was  a  statue  of 
Rowland  Hill;  after  that  came  the  fine  statue; 
of  Irving,  as  Hamlet  (Fig.  573),  the  Huxley, 
in  the  Natural  History  Museum,  the  Shelley 
Memorial,   at  Oxford,   the  Gordon,   at  Wool- 

301 


i 

FIG.    572. — BISHOP 

CREIGHTON. 

(hamo  THORNYCROFT.) 

ST.    PAUL'S. 

Bronze. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


wich,  the  memorial  to  Dr.  Jowett,  and 
the  unsuccessful  Lord  Strathnairn,  at 
Knightsbridge.  The  history  of  the 
last  named  is  one  of  the  many  trage- 
dies of  committees.  Ford's  first  model 
was  excellent,  the  horse  standing  at  the 
edge  of  the  pedestal  and  looking  down 
over  his  toes,  while  his  rider  peered 
out  to  the  front  as  if  watching  a  fight. 
The  uniform  was  that  of  Colonel  of 
the  First  Life  Guards,  and  the  whole 
conception  had  unity,  both  of  line  and 
action.  But  the  Committee  insisted  on 
alterations 


FIG.    573. — IRVING,    AS   HAMLET. 
(E.    ONSLOW    FORD.) 

Guildhall  Gallery. 


which  near- 
ly broke  the 
scul  p  tor's 
heart  and 
give  us  the  comparatively  meaningless 
group  we  now  see.  The  imbecility  of 
English  committees  in  these  matters  is 
amazing.  What  would  be  said  of  a 
patient  who  engaged  a  surgeon  to  cut  off 
his  leg,  and  then  insisted  on  directing 
the  operation  ?  And  yet  it  would  be  no 
more  ridicu- 
lous than  for 


FIG.    574. — QUEEN   VICTORIA 

MONUMENT,    MANCHESTER. 

(e.    ONSLOW    FORD.) 

Bronze  and  marble. 


FIG.  575. — "maternity";  back  of 

QUEEN   VICTORIA   MONUMENT, 

MANCHESTER. 

(e.   ONSLOW   FORD.) 


a  company 
of  generals 
and  civil  ser- 
vants to  in- 
sist on  designing  a  statue.  It  is  a  misera- 
ble thing  to  have  to  confess,  but  the 
truth  is  that  on  nearly  every  occasion 
when  a  committee  has  had  to  select  a 
design,  whether  for  a  building  or  for  a 
less  utilitarian  work  of  art,  in  England, 
it  has  passed  over  something  good  to 
choose  something  bad.  It  has  not  been 
that  English  architects  and  sculptors 
were  incapable,  but  that  the  laymen 
with  whom  the  decisions  rested  did  not 
302 


SCULPTURE-PRESENT  DAY 


FIG.  576. — THE  YOUTH 
OF  ORPHEUS, 
(j.  M.  SWAN.) 

Plaster. 


FIG.  577. — THE  YOUTH 

OF  ORPHEUS.      BACK 

VIEW. 

(j.   M.    SWAN.) 


know  a  good  thing  when  they 

saw    it.     During    the    last   few 

years,   happily,    a   truer   theory 

on    such    matters    has    shown 

signs   of   coming    to    the   front, 

and  the  twentieth  century  may 

turn  out  to  be  less  a  record  of 

lost  opportunities  than  the  nine- 
teenth.    Before     parting     with 

Ford,  it  must  be  noted  that  he 

has    left   some   excellent    busts, 

the  best,   perhaps,   being  those 

of     Sir     William     Orchardson 

and  the  late  Mr.  Ridley  Cor- 
bet, the  landscape  painter. 
From    Onslow    Ford     it    is 

easy  to  pass  to  his  friend  and 

neighbor,    Mr.    John    McAllan 

Swan,  although  they  had  little 
enough  in  common  in  their  work.  Mr.  Swan,  like  the  great 
majority  of  his  fellow  sculptors  for  the  last  forty  years,  gathered 
his  education  in  more  countries  than  one,  France  having  a  right  to 
most  of  the  credit.  In  England  he  studied  at  Worcester,  and 
in  that  school  at  Lambeth  which  has  done  so  much  more  than  its 
share  for  English  art.  He  may  be  classed  as  a  diociple  of  Barye 
and  Fremiet,  who  has  in  some  ways  equalled,  if  he  has  not  even 
excelled,  his  models.  More  than  any  of  his  rivals  has  he  worked 
from  within  outward,  never  losing  his  grip  on  the  fact  that  a  live 
animal  is  an  engineering  device, 
moving  only  as  its  levers  and 
joints  allow.  And  yet  he  is  not 
satisfied  with  structure  and  its 
result  in  motion.  He  models  the 
envelope  of  flesh,  skin,  and  fur 
with  greater  truth  of  suggestion 
than  any  previous  animalier,  not 
excepting  even  his  two  French 
exemplars.  Mr.  Swan  is  one  of 
the  few  moderns  who  can  be 
compared  with  the  Italians  of  the 

early   renaissance   in   his  way   of   looking   at   art.     He   is   sculptor, 
painter,  ornemaniste,  and  a  magnificent  maker  of  drawings.    Among  his 

303 


FIG.    578. — LEOPARD    AND    TORTOISE, 
(j.    M.    SWAN.) 

^Bronze. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


no.    579. — HOUNDS    IN    LEASH.       (hARRY    BATES.) 

Tate  Gallery.     (Plaster.) 


best  things  are  two  groups 
of  Orpheus  charm- 
ing the  Beasts  (Figs. 
376-7),  a  Puma  and 
Macaw,  Leopard  and 
Tortoise  (Fig.  378),  and 
Fata  Morgana.  At  the 
present  moment  he  is 
engaged  on  modelUng  the 
colossal  Rons  for  the 
tomb  of  Cecil  Rhodes  in 
South  Africa.  Between 
Mr. 


Swan's  art  and  that  of  Harry  Bates  there  is  a 
good  deal  in  common.  Bates,  who,  like  not 
a  few  of  our  best  sculptors,  began  life  as  a 
carver,  had  a  gift  for  the  play  of  line  which 
amounted  to  genius.  Unhappily  his  life  was 
short,  and  he  has  left  but  little  behind  him. 
His  finest  things,  perhaps,  are  the  reliefs  of 
/Eneas  and  Homer,  and  the  Hounds  in  Leash 
(Fig.  379).  Other  members  of  the  same  gen- 
eration are  Mr.  Roscoe  Mullins,  whose  chief 
work  so  far  is  the  pediment  to  the  Preston 
Museum  ;  Mr.  George  Simonds,  whose  statue 
of  the  Northern  Aurora,  the  goddess  Gerd,  is 
excellent  ;  Mr.  Stirling  Lee,  the  sculptor  of 
the  reliefs  of  the  St.  George's  Hall,  in  Liver- 
pool ;  Mr. 
Lucchesi, 
the   Anglo- 


FIG.  580. — DAME  ALICE 

OWEN. 

(GEORGE  FRAMPTON.) 


FIG.    581. — DUKE   OF   DEVONSHIRE, 
(j.   GOSCOMBE  JOHN.)      EASTBOURNE. 


304 


Italian  author  of  Destiny  and  a 
Flight  of  Fancy;  and  Mr. 
Pomeroy,  who  worked  under 
Dalou,  at  Lambeth,  and  is 
responsible  for  the  excellent 
Burns,  at  Paisley,  besides  many 
other  statues  and  much  archi- 
tectonic sculpture. 

Coming  down  to  a  slightly 
later  time,  the  most  notable 
figure  among  those  sculptors  who 


SCULPTURE-PRESENT  DAY 


FIG.  582. — THE  ELF.      (j.  GOSCOMBE  JOHN.) 


are   still   on    the   sunny   side   of 

fifty    is    probably    Mr.    George 

Frampton,    another    alumnus    of 

Lambeth  and  Paris.     Commenc- 
ing  exhibitor    in    1884,   he  has 

been  a  faithful  contributor  to  the 

Royal   Academy,    sending   there 

The    Children     of    the     Wolf 

(Romulus    and    Remus    brought 

home  by   the   shepherd   Faustu- 

lus),  Mysteriarch,  Lamia,  Dame 

Alice    Owen    (Fig.    580),    and 

many  other  notable  works.     As  a 

sculptor  he  stands  by  himself, 
and  is  di- 
vided from 
his  contem- 
poraries by 
both  quali- 
ties and  de- 
fects. No  one  of  his  own  generation  rivals 
his  power  of  suggesting  intellect  and  imagina- 
tion actually  at  work  in  his  figures.  On  the 
other  hand,  his  designs  are  curiously  wanting 
in  that  organic  relation  be- 
tween the  parts  which,  at 
its  best,  works  out  to  unity. 
He  has  been  responsible 
for  much  good  decoration, 
and  is  credited  with  having 
done  not  a  little  to  bring 
about    a    change    for    the 

better  in  the  aspect  of  English  officialdom  toward 

artistic    questions.     Among    his    best    monuments 

are  the  memorial  to  Charles  Mitchell,  at  New- 
castle, the  statue  of  Lord  Salisbury,  at  Hatfield, 

and    that    of    Quintin  Hogg,  in    Regent    Street, 

where  the  narrowness  of  the  site  and  the  tightly 

gathered  design  work  into  each  other's  hands.       ' 
From  Mr.  Frampton  it  is  easy  to  pass  to  Mr. 

Goscombe   John,    yet   another   son   of   Lambeth. 

Mr.   John  began  as  a  carver,  and  won  the  Gold 

305 


PIG.    583. — FORTUNE. 
(f.  PEGRAM.) 


FIG.  584.— JOSEPH 

PRIESTLEY. 
(ALFRED  DRURY.) 

X 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


Medal  of  the  R.A.  at  a  compara- 
tively mature  age.  His  strong  point 
is  modelling,  which  he  has  carried 
sometimes  to  a  remarkable  pitch  of 
refinement,  one  of  the  best  instances 
being  the  torso  of  his  Morpheus. 
Other  good  examples  of  his  power 
are  a  John  the  Baptist,  the  seated 
Duke  of  Devonshire  (Fig.  581), 
at  Eastbourne,  and  The  Elf  (Fig. 
582).  Mr.  Pegram  (Fig.  583). 
Mr.  Alfred 


FIG.    585. — GROUP  ON  WAR  OFFICE. 
(ALFRED   DRURY.) 


Drury  (Figs. 
584  and  585), 
and  Mr.  Albert 
Toft(Fig.587) 
have  all  shown  themselves  equal  to  those 
opportunities  which  have  come  to  them  so 
much  more  generously  than  they  did  to 
English  sculptors  of  earlier  generations.  Mr. 
Drury,  especially,  has  left  his  mark  on  our 
cities,    his    most    important    works    being    the 

sculpture  on  the 
new  War  Office 
(Fig.  585),  and 
the  Joseph 
Priestley  (Fig. 
584),  at  Leeds, 
where    he    had 


FIG.    586. — CIRCE. 
(BERTRAM  MCKENNAL.) 


FIG.    587. — VICTORY. 
(albert  TOFT.) 


also  a  chance  of  showing  that  objects 
of  the  severest  utility  may  be  the 
vehicles  of  good  art.  For  Leeds 
City  Square  has  the  best  group  of 
decorative  sculpture  yet  arranged  in 
England,  a  group  which  should  bring 
shame  to  the  cheeks  of  those  responsi- 
ble for  the  present  appearance  of 
Parliament  Square,  in  Westminster. 
In  the  centre  is  Mr.  Brock's  Black 
Prince  (Fig.  557),  surrounded  by 
eight  electric  light  standards  by  Mr. 
Drury,  the  lamps  upheld  by  finely 
306 


SCULPTURE-PRESENT  DAY 


FIG.  588. — THE  GIRDLE.      (w.  R.  COLTON.) 

Tate  Gallery. 


modelled  figures  of  nude  women  ; 

the  arrangement  is  completed  by 

four   colossal    statues   contributed 

by  Mr.   Drury  and  Mr.   H.   C. 

Fehr.     Mr.    Albert    Toft's    best 

things  are  probably  Victory  (Fig. 

587)  and  The  Spirit  of  Contem- 
plation. 

Coming    down    later    still    we 

reach  two  men  of  unusual  capacity 

in  Mr.   Bertram  McKennal  and 

Mr.  W.  R.  Colton.     The  former 

is  the  son  of  a  Scots  sculptor  who 

emigrated    to    Australia,    where 

the  son  was  born  in   1865.     He 

was   educated   in   London,   with 

finishing  touches  in  Paris.     At  the 

age  of   twenty-four  he  won   the 

competition  for  decorating  Gov- 
ernment   House    in    Melbourne, 

Among  his  best  statues  are  Circe  (Fig.   586),  For  She  sitteth  on 

a  Seat  in  the  High  Places  of  the  City,    and   Diana  Wounded ; 

this  last  is  in  the  Tate  Gallery,  which  also  possesses  a  bibelot  after 

Rodin  convention,  in  The  Earth  and  the  Elements.  Mr.  Colton's  train- 
ing was  strictly  orthodox  : 
Lambeth,  Royal  Acad- 
emy, Paris.  His  best 
works,  so  far,  are  the 
Image  Finder  (Fig.  589), 
The  Girdle  (Fig.  588), 
and  Springtime  of  Life, 
the  two  last  in  the  Tate 
Gallery.  To  the  same 
generation  belong  Mr.  A. 
G.  Walker,  whose  best 
things,  perhaps,  are  The 
Thorn  (Fig.  591),  Sleep, 
and  a  fine  relief.  The  Last 
Plague  ;  Mr.  J.  Wenlock 
Rollins,  Mr.  Gilbert  Bayes, 
Mr.   Taubman,   Mr.   Paul  "''geo^gI"''' 

Montford,    and    Mr.    Der-  (h.  c.  fehr.) 

307  X2 


fig.    589. — THE   image 
FINDER. 

(W.    R.    COLTON.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


fig.  59 1. — the  thorn. 
(a.  g.  walker.) 


went  Wood.  Mr.  Wood  has  especially 
distinguished  himself  by  his  power  of  model- 
ling and  the  flexibility  of  his  designing 
power.  He  has  probably  a  great  future 
before  him. 

Standing  somewhat  apart  from  other 
English  sculptors  is  Mr.  Havard  Thomas, 
the  author  of  a  beautiful  statue  and  a 
wonderfully  accomplished  piece  of  model- 
ling in  The  Slave,  and 
of  the  much  discussed 
Lyddas.  We  have  to 
answer  the  following 
question  before  t  h  e 
Lycidas  can  be  accepted 
or  refused  as  a  work  of 
art  :  Is  modelling,  of  the 


completes!  kind  imaginable,  to  be  accepted  as 
enough  to  justify  the  making  of  a  statue,  and  to 
compensate  for  the  total  absence  of  an  organized 
design  ?     In  short,  is  good  imitation  good  art  ? 

The  question  an- 


no. 592. — DOORWAY, 

SCOTTISH    PORTRAIT 

GALLERY. 

(BIRNIE    RHIND.) 


FIG.  593. — MONUMENT  TO  QUEEN 
VICTORIA,    DUBLIN. 
OOHN   HUGHES.) 


swers  itself. 

In  Scotland 
and  Ireland  the 
art  of  sculpture 
has  hitherto  had 
few  chances  of 
flourishing.  In 
Scotland,  espe- 
cially, it  has  been 

feeble  and  meaningless,  although 
during  the  last  decade  or  two  signs 
of  better  things  have  not  been  en- 
tirely wanting.  Among  living  artists, 
Mr.  McGillivray  and  Mr.  Birnie 
Rhind  are  doing  excellent  work, 
the  statues  by  the  latter  on  the 
outside  of  the  Scottish  National 
Portrait  Gallery  (Fig.  592)  being 
very  good  of  their  kind.  Dublin 
has  been  more  fortunate  than  Edin- 
308 


SCULPTURE-PRESENT  DAY 


burgh.  While  the  statues  fringing  Prince's 
Street  are  comically  bad,  those  which  stand 
in  the  high  places  of  the  Irish  capital  are 
nearly  all  good.  A  leaden  Tom  Moore  is, 
indeed,  a  disgrace  to  every  one  concerned  ; 
but  Foley,  an  Irishman,  was  at  his  best 
when  working  for  his  own  metropolis  (see 
page  294),  and  the  Parnell  of  the  late 
Augustus  St.  Gaudens  promises,  at  least,  to 
be  far  from  commonplace.  Meanwhile  the 
city  has  been  enriched  with  a  monument  to 
the    late    Queen 


6::^^^ 


Victoria  (Fig. 
593)  by  a  young 
Irish  sculptor, 
Mr.  John 

Hughes,  which  is 
very  remarkable 
indeed.       Its       triangular 


FIG.    504. — ICARUS. 
(ALFRED    GILBERT.) 

Bronze. 


FIG.    595. — ST.    GEORGE,    TOMB 

OF   DUKE    OF   CLARENCE, 

WINDSOR. 

(ALFRED   GILBERT.) 


managed  with  unprecedented 
and  the  whole  movement 
originality  of  conception  with 
tive  power  in  a  rare  degree. 

So   far   I   have 
been    writing,    in  ~ 

this  chapter,  of 
men  who  have 
shown  themselves 
to  be  possessed  of 
more    than    aver- 


pedestal      is 


jkill, 
unites 
execu- 


age  abilities  and  far  more  than  the  average 
equipment  which  used  to  be  at  the  command 
of  English  sculpture.  I  have  yet  to  speak  of 
an  artist  whose  genius,  like  that  of  Stevens 
in  a  previous  generation,  sets  him  apart  from 
all  his  contemporaries.  Mr.  Alfred  Gilbert, 
the  son  of  a  musician,  was  trained  at 
South  Kensington,  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux 
Arts,  in  Rome,  and  in  the  studio  of  Sir 
Edgar  Boehm.  His  first  work  to  attract 
much  attention  was  a  group.  Mother  and 
Child;  after  that  came  Icarus  (Fig.  594), 

309 


FIG.  596. — TRAGEDY    AND 

COMEDY. 

(ALFRED    GILBERT.) 

Bronze. 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


FIG.    597. — MONUMENT   TO   QUEEN    VICTORIA, 

WINCHESTER,    FRONT    VIEW. 

(albert   GILBERT.) 


one  of  the  finest  designs  ever  realized  by  a  sculptor,  busts  oi 
Mr.  J.  S.  Clayton,  Watts,  and  Baron  Huddleston,  the  statue  of 
Queen  Victoria  for  Winchester  (Figs.  597  and  398),  the  memo- 
rial   to    Fawcett    in    Westminster    Abbey,    the    splendid    Howard 

statue  at  Bedford,  the 
Shaftesbury  Memorial 
Fountain,  the  monu- 
ment to  the  Dul^e  of 
Clarence,  at  Windsor, 
and  the  strange  but 
fascinating  retable  to 
the  High  Altar  of  St. 
Albans  Cathedral 
(Fig.  566).  Besides 
these  more  "  import- 
ant "  works,  Gilbert 
has  carried  out  a 
large  number  of  small 
figurines  (Figs.  594, 
595,  and  596)  and 
many  decorative  de- 
signs, from  the  army 
officers'  gift  to  Queen 
Victoria  at  her  first 
Jubilee  to  such  toys  as 
seals.  Of  these  a 
seal  for  Lady  de 
Vesci  may  be  named 
as  one  of  the  finest. 

Mr.  Gilbert  pos- 
sesses a  more  origi- 
nating brain  than  any 
other  living  British 
sculptor.  When  at 
his  best,  every  new 
commission  was  for 
him  a  new  problem, 
with  all  sorts  of  possibilities  attached  to  it.  In  thinking  it  over, 
his  head  began  to  teem  with  ideas,  aesthetical  and  technical,  the 
result  being  too  often  a  slowness  in  execution  which  tried  the 
patience  of  all  concerned  a  little  too  highly.  The  result  has  been 
that  not  one,  probably,  of  his  more  important  creations  represents 

310 


SCULPTURE-PRESENT  DAY 


his  thought  exactly.  As  an  instance  of  this  the  bust  of  Baron 
Huddleston  may  be  named.  It  was  conceived  as  an  attempt  at 
something  Hke  illusion,  an  enamelled  bronze  which  should  be 
comparable  in  its  effect  to  the  colored  terra-cotta  bust  of  Colley 
Gibber  (Fig.  349)  in 
the  Portrait  Gallery. 
To  this  idea  he  after- 
ward returned  in 
the  St.  Albans  rere- 
dos,  which,  in  turn, 
has  been  left  unfin- 
ished. Mr.  Gilbert's 
technical  skill  and  re- 
sources are  as  great 
as  those  of  Cellini  ; 
it  is  only  when  we 
come  to  what  may 
be  called  his  external 
judgment  that  we  find 
much  to  criticise. 
Give  him  a  blank  to 
fill  and  be  will  fill  it, 
in  time,  with  a  master- 
piece. Unfortunately 
it  is  not  always  the 
right  sort  of  master- 
piece. The  Shaftes- 
bury fountain  is 
beautiful  ;  in  silver,  on 
a  circular  dining  table, 
it  would  be  beauty  in 
the  right  place.  In 
the  unhealed  scar 
which  is  now  called 
Piccadilly  Circus  its 
beauty  is  wasted,  and 
the  site  is  only  half 
occupied.  And  so  with  the  Clarence  tomb  at  Windsor.  The 
sarcophagus  is  fine  and  the  railing  about  it  beautiful,  but  they 
are  mutually  destructive.  The  grille  hides  the  sarcophagus  almost 
as  perversely  as  the  bronze  grille  hides  Henry  VII.  in  his  chapel 
at    Westminster,    while    the    sarcophagus    blocks    the    voids    of 

311 


PIG.    598. — MONUMENT  TO   QUEEN   VICTORIA, 

WINCHESTER,    BACK   VIEW. 

(ALFRED    GILBERT.) 


ART  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 

the  grille,  and  prevents  a  full  appreciation  of  its  exquisite  design. 
The  greatest  tragedy  of  art  is  the  inability  of  the  artist  fully  to 
realize  his  dreams.  The  pure  artist,  like  pure  gold,  wastes  too 
rapidly  in  use.  He  requires  a  touch  of  alloy  to  make  him  fit  for  the 
world's  purposes,  to  make  him  content  to  withdraw  his  hand  from  a 
masterpiece  while  yet  it  might  be  bettered.  In  striving  for  perfec- 
tion the  first  inspiration  too  often  dies  down,  and  it  is  not  given  to 
every  one,  as  it  was  to  Alfred  Stevens,  to  be  at  once  the  unerring 
critic  of  himself  and  the  inspired  creator.  Those  conceptions  of 
Alfred  Gilbert  which  remain  conceptions,  which  have  never  taken 
form  beyond  those  slight  indications  in  which  their  splendor  can  be 
but  dimly  seen,  fill  with  an  immense  regret  all  those  who  have 
followed  his  career. 

BIBUOGRAPHY  TO  CHAPTERS  XIX— XXI. 

Prior,  E.  S.,  and  Gardner,  A.:  English  Mediaeoal  Sculpture,  Architectural  Review,  Vols. 
XII— XVII.  James,  M.  R.:  The  Sculpture  in  the  Lady  Chapel  at  Ely,  Archaeologia,  Vol, 
LIX.  The  Sculpture  on  Wells  Cathedral.  Spielmann,  M.  H.:  British  Sculpture  and  Sculptors 
of  To-day,  1901.  Colvin,  Sidney:  The  Drawings  of  Flax  man  in  the  Gallery  of  University 
College,  London,  with  a  notice  of  his  life,  1876.  Monkhouse,  C. :  The  Works  of  J.  H.  FoleUt 
1875.  Raymond,  A.  J.:  Life  of  Chanlrey,  1904.  Armstrong.  W. :  Alfred  Stevens,  1881. 
Stannus,  H.:  /4//reJ  5/euens,  1891.  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.  Art  Union  Journal. 
Art  Journal,  Architectural  Review  (passim). 


FIG.    599. — BASE   OF   LAMP-STANDARD.      (ALFRED   DRUHY.) 


312 


INDEX 


Abel.  John.  81. 

Abercorn,  Duke  of  (collection), 

205. 
Academy.    Royal,    183.     184, 

206.  208.  211,  214,  225, 

232,  234,  237,  247,  254, 

258,  307. 
Academy,  Royal  Scottish,  223. 
Adam,  Brothers,  102-104. 
Adelphi,  The,  102. 
Admiralty  Office.  118. 
Adoration  of  the  Magi,  carving, 

140. 
/Exlelwyrme,  137. 
/Elfleda,  Queen,  137. 
/Elgitha,  Queen,  137. 
Agecroft  Hall.  82. 
Aix  (Provence).  139. 
"Alablasters."  285. 
Alan  of  Walsingham.  43. 
Alcuin.  144.  145. 
Aldworth.  Berks.  284. 
Alexander.  William.  263. 
Alfred  the  Great.  145. 
All     Saints'     Church.     Derby. 

68. 
All   Saints*    Church.    Margaret 

Street.  110. 
All     Saints'      Church,     York, 

(stained  glass),  134. 
All   Souls'    College,   96.    175; 

Chapal,  reredos.  70 ;  Chapel. 

screen.   1 34  ;  Chapel,  stained 

glass.    134;    Chapel,    tower. 

99 ;  Chapel.  Wren's  work.  92. 
Altamira.  I. 

Althorp.  209 :  pictures  at,  188. 
Altyre,  11. 
Amesbury  House,  9 1 . 
Amiens  Cathedral,  45.  47.  62. 

66. 


Ampthill.  82. 

Anderson.  Rowand.   103,  112. 

Anne  of  Bohemia,  bronze  figure 

of,  286. 
Anne,  Queen,  101. 
"Anne,  Queen,  Style,"  1 13. 
Annaly,       Lord       (collection), 

205. 
"Antiquities  of  Athens,"    105. 
Archer,  98,  100. 
Archer's      Hall,       Eldinburgh, 

203. 
Armstead,  George,  295  ;  Tomh 

of  Lord  Winmarleigh,  29b. 
Armstrong,    Lord    (collection), 

213. 
Arras,  Yorks,  8.  9. 
Arundel  Castle.  165. 
Arundel,  Earl  of.  138. 
Ashburnham      House.      West- 
minster. 90,  91. 
Ashfield.  Edmund.  173. 
Ashmolean  Museum.  92.    141. 

166.  172. 
Aston  Hall.  81. 
Athenaeum  Club.  107. 
Atherington    Church,     wooden 

screen  in.  72. 
Atkinson.  120. 
Avebury  Church,  2 1 . 
Aveline.      Lady,      statue      of, 

284. 
Aubusson.  139. 
AudleyEnd.  79.  81. 
Augsburg.  163. 
Augsburg  Cathedral,  1 3 1  n. 
Aylesford,  Kent,  9. 


B 


Bacon,  Charles,  247. 
Bacon,  Francis,  166. 

313 


Bacon,  John,  291  ;    Monument 

to  Lord  Halifax,  29\ . 
Bacon,   John,    Statue    of  Dr. 

Johnson.  290. 
Bacon,    Nathaniel,    166;     The 

Cookmaid,  166. 
Baillie-Hamihon,      Hon.    Mrs. 

(collection),  203. 
Baily,  E.  H.,  294 ;  Eve,  294. 
Baldwin,  101. 
Balfour,      Rt.      Hon.     A.     J. 

(collection),  234. 
Bangor,  Lord  (collection),  193. 
Bank  of  England,  107. 
Bank  of  Ireland,  102. 
Bankes,       Ralph      (collection), 

194. 
Banks,  Thomas,  291,293. 
Baptist  Church  House,  120. 
Barcheston,  Warwickshire,  1 39. 
Bardsey  Church,  2 1 . 
Baring,     Thomas     (collection), 

197. 
Barlow,  Francis,  173. 
Barnack  Church,  19,21,23. 
Barney,  W.W.,  156  n. 
Barret,     George,      195,      261, 

265. 
Barret,     George,     Junr.,     266, 

267. 
Barry,  Charles,  108,  109. 
Barry,  E.  M.,  56. 
Barry,  James,  1 77,  206,  207. 
Barton  -  on  -  Humber      Church, 

19,21.23. 
Barye.  303. 
Bates.  Harry.  304. 
Bates.    Harry,    yEneas,    304; 

Homer,    304;     Hounds    in 

Leash,  304. 
Bath  Abbey,  64,  68, 
Bath,  architecture  in,  101. 
Bath  GuildhaU.  101. 


INDEX 


Battenea,     Lady     (coDection), 

234. 
Bayes.  Gilbert.  307. 
Bayeux  Tapestry,  137. 
Beach,  Thomas,  200. 
Beale.  Mary,  1  72. 
Beard,  Thomas,  153. 
Beauchamp  Chapel,  Warwick, 

64. 
Beaulieu  Abbey.  48. 
Beauvais,  139. 
Bedford,  310. 
Bedlam,  289. 
Beek,  David,  169. 
Behnes,  William,  226,  297. 
Belcher,  T.,  116,  117;  Electra 

House,  116. 
Belfast  Town  Hall,  120. 
Belgium,  132. 
Bell,  Henry,  97. 
Belt  (sculptor),  290. 
Benedictional   (at   Chatsworth), 

145. 
Bentley,  121,  130. 
Benson,    R.     H.      (collection), 

234,  237. 
Bettes,    John,     1 65 ;     Thomas, 

165. 
Beverley     Minster,      49,      57; 

Percy  Shrine,  56. 
Bewcastle  Cross,  274. 
Bewick,  Thomas,  150,  151. 
Bibracte,  126. 
Bigg,  W.  R.,  155. 
Bird,    Francis,    290 ;   Statue  of 

Dr.   Busbv,  290;    Statue  of 

Queen  Anne.  290. 
Birdlip,  9. 

Bishopstone  Church,  2 1 . 
Boadicea,  136. 
Board  of  Trade  Offices,  118. 
Bodleian  Library,  145. 
Bodley,  111. 
Boehm,  Edgar,  309. 
Bogle,  John,  255. 
Boit,  Charles,  258. 
Boncle,  Sir  Eldward,  162. 
Bone,  Henry,  259. 
Bone,  Henry  Pierce,  259. 
Bone,  Muirhead,  272. 
Bone,  Robert  Trewick,  259. 
Bonington,      Richard      Parkes, 

265,271. 
Bonnat,  Leon,  1 72,  246. 
Book  of  Armagh,  14.  143. 
Book  of  Durrow,  14,  143. 

BookofKells,  13,  14,  143. 
Book    of    the    Gospels    of    St. 
Cuthbert,  143. 


Bordier,  Pierre,  257,  258. 
Borthwick  Castle,  84. 
Bossam,  John,  165. 
Boston      Church,     Tower     of, 

68. 
Boswell,    George,    portrait    of, 

166. 
Bothwell  Castle,  83,  84. 
Bovey  Tracey  Church,  wooden 

screen  in,  72. 
Bow  Church,  Cheapside.  93. 
Bower.  ELdward,  169;  Portrait 

of  Charles  I,  169. 
Boyce.  G.  P.,  239. 
Boydell,  Josiah,  155  n.,  207. 
Blenheim     Palace,      98,      99, 

188. 
Blomfield,  Arthur,  111. 
Blomfield,  Reginald,  77,  80,  81 , 

91,97,  119. 
Blois.  44. 
Blooteling.       Abraham.       1 52, 

1 54  ;  Monmouth,  1 54. 
Bloxham  Church,  57. 
Bradford-on- Avon  Church,  22  ; 

rood  at,  276. 
Bramley,  Frank,  242. 
Brandon,  Raphael,  1  10. 
Branston  Church,  21,  25. 
Branston,  Robert,  151. 
Brasenose  College,  65. 
Breadsall  Church,  285. 
Brennus,  3. 
Brett,  John,  238,  239. 
Bridgewater  House,  1 08. 
Bristol  Cathedral.  I  10. 
Bristol  Museum,  10. 
British      and      Foreign      Bible 

Society,  237. 
British  Museum,    10,    11,    107, 

138,    140,    144,    146,    166, 

183,261,262,296. 
Brixworth  Church,  20. 
Brock,   Thomas,   294;    Bishop 

Philpot.  294  ;  Black  Prince. 

294,     306;      Cenotaph     of 

Leighton,  294;    Eve,   294; 

Gainsborough.  294 ;  Moment 

of     Peril,      294;       Robert 

Raikes,   294;    Queen    Vic- 
toria. 294. 
Bromley,  J.  C,  156  n. 
Bromley,  James,  156  n. 
Bronze  Figures  in  Westminster 

Abbey,  286. 
Brooking,  Charles,  198,  261. 
Brooks  (architect).  111. 
Brooks,  John,  153,  154. 
Brown,  Austen,  24 1 . 

314 


Brown,  Baldwin,  17-20. 

Brown,  Darell  (collection),  211, 
214. 

Brown,  Ford  Madox,  230, 
232,  239,  268;  Chaucer  at 
the  Court  of  Edward  III., 
23 1  ;  Christ  Washing  the 
Disciples'  Feet,  231  ;  Elijah 
and  the  Widow's  Son.  231  ; 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  231  ; 
Work.  231. 

Brown.  Frederick.  248. 

Browne,  Alexander,  152. 

Brough,  Robert,  244.  245; 
Fantaisie  en  Folic,  245 ;  St. 
Anne  of  Brittany.  245 ; 
Twixt  Sun  and  Moon, 
245. 

Buccleuch.  Duke  of  (collec- 
tion). 250,  251. 

Buckhurst,  81. 

Buckingham  House,  St.  James's 
Park,  97. 

Burdett  Coutts  (collection), 
250. 

Barford  Church,  Oxon,  282. 

Burges,    110. 

Burghersh  Tomb,  Lincoln, 
284. 

Burghley  House,  81,  173,  177, 
289. 

Burke,  Thomas,  155  n. 

Burlington,  Eari  of,  98,  99. 

Burlington  House,  99,  217, 
223. 

Bume-Jones,  Edward,  232- 
235,  268.  272;  Beguiling  of 
Merlin.  234;  The  Brazen 
Tower.  234 ;  The  Briar 
Rose.  234;  Chant  d' Amour, 
234;  Days  of  Creation.  234; 
Depths  of  the  Sea,  234; 
King  Cophetua  and  the 
Beggar  Maid,  234;  The 
Golden  Stairs,  234 ;  Laus 
Veneris,  234 ;  Mirror  of 
Venus.  234;  Wheel  of 
Fortune,  234. 

Bums.  Robert.  202. 

Burton.  W.  S.,  236. 

Busby,  Dr.,  92. 

Bushey  Park.  95. 

Butterfield.  110. 

Bury  St.  Edmunds.  19  n.,  27, 
30,  82. 

Bryanston  Park.  104,  122. 

Brydon,  Jsunes,  101. 

Brydon,  J.  C,  118. 

Brythons,  8. 


INDEX 


Caesar,  Julius,  3,  1 26. 

Cdsar,  Sir  Julius,  Monument 

of,  289.     5ee  Stone,  N. 
Calcott,   Augustus  Wall,   222, 

225  ;    Mouth  of  the    Tyne, 

lib. 
Calderon,  P.  H.,  246. 
Cambridge,        Senate      House, 

100;  Trinity  CoUege,  95. 
Cameron,  D.Y.,  241. 
Campanile,  Venice,  1 13. 
Campbell,  Colin,  98,  100. 
Canada     Gates,      Buckingham 

Palace,  130. 
Canale,  Antonio,  196. 
Canterbury,  143. 
Canterbury  Cathedral,  26,  41- 

43,  62,  63,  276,  277;  Angel 

Tower,    64,     113;     stained 

glass,       131;      tower,      69 ; 

tapestries  for  choir,  1 39. 
Cardiff  Castle,  110. 
Cardinal        College        (Christ- 
church),  Oxford,  71. 
Carlisle,  301. 
Carlisle  Cathedral,  57. 
Carlisle,   Lord,  234  ;  his  house, 

Kensington    Palace   Gardens, 

122. 
Carnarvon,  Elarl  of,  171. 
Carpeaux,  297,  300. 
Cartmel        Church,        wooden 

screen,  72. 
Casino,  near  Dublin,  102. 
CasUe  Campbell,  84. 
Castle  Howard,  98. 
Cathcart,       Lord      (collection), 

193. 
Cattermole,  George,  266. 
Caucasus,  2. 
Cawdor  Castle,  84. 
Cella,  Abbot  John  de,  46. 
Cellini,  311. 
Celtic    art,    3-15,     140,     142, 

1 43  ;    enamels,    1  1  ;    Gospels 

page  from,  1 42. 
Celts,  3,  4,  276. 
Central  Criminal  Court,  117. 
Cervantes,  225. 
Chalon,  255. 
Chambers,        William,        101, 

102. 
Champneys,  Basil,  112. 
Chan  trey,  Francis,  294. 
Chardin,  195,  196. 
Charlecote,  81. 
Charlemagne.  131.  144.  145. 


Charlemont.  Earl  of.  102. 
Charles  I..  87.  89,   139,   166, 

168,257;  statue  of,  290. 
Charles  II.,  93,  94,  152,  175, 

257  ;  statue  of,  290. 
Charles,  James,  247. 
Charlotte    Square,    Eldinburgh, 

103. 
Charterhouse,  79. 
Chartres  Cathedral,  41  ;  stained 

glass  at,  1 30. 
Chatsworth,  90,  97,  251,289. 
Chelsea  Church,  77. 
Chester,   half-timber  houses  at, 

82. 
Chichester  Cathedral,  30,  127; 

iron  grille  in,  1 28 ;  sculptures 

in.  275-277. 
Chipping  Ongar,  19  n. 
Chinese,  the,  126. 
Cholmeley,   Sir  H.  (collection), 

193. 
Christ  Church,  Oxford,  22,  23. 

30,  65.  73.  1  I  1  ;  the  hall  at. 

65. 
Christall,  Joshua,  265. 
Cibber,    Caius    Gabriel,    289 ; 

figures    of    Melancholy    and 

Madness;  ibid. 
Cibber.  CoUey.  289.  290 ;  bust 

of,  311. 
Cistercians,  37. 
Claude     Lorrain,      194,     225. 

267. 
Clennell.  Luke.  151. 
Clerk.    Sir   G.  D.   (collection). 

203. 
Cleveley,  John,  263. 
Cleveley,  Robert,  263. 
Cleyn,  Penelope,  25 1 . 
Clint,  George,  1 56  n. 
Cliveden  House,  100. 
Clonmacnoise,  13. 
Cnut,  King,  137. 
Coalbrookdale     Gates,      Hyde 

Park,  129. 
Cobham  Hall,  Kent.  90. 
Cockerell,  C.  R..  108. 
Cole.  Peter.  165. 
College  of  Science.  S.  Kensing- 
ton. 119. 
Colley.  Jane,  289. 
Collier,  Thomas,  268. 
Collins,  Charles  AUston,  235. 
Collins,  Flichard,  255. 
Collins,  William,  225. 
CoUinson,  James,  229,  235. 
Colton,    W.    R.,    307;     The 

Girdle,    307 ;     The    Image 

315 


Finder,  307 ;     The  Spring. 

time  of  Life.  307. 
Commentary     of     Cassiodorus. 

143. 
Compton  Norton,  127. 
Compton  Winyates,  65. 
Constable,  Isabel,  217. 
Constable,     John,      157.     196, 

214-217.    242.    244.  271 ; 

The   Cornfield,    216.    217: 

The   Hay  wain,    217;     The 

Jumping  Horse,  217;     The 

Valley  Farm.  1]  7. 
Constantine,  Emperor.  136. 
Constitution  Hill  Gates,  1 29. 
Cooper,  Alexander,  25 1 . 
Cooper,     Samuel,     163,     168, 

170,   202,  251,    252,  256. 

292;         Cromwell.        261; 

General  Monk.  25 1 . 
Coote.  Sir  Algernon,  171. 
Cope,    Ascoli,     1 38 ;     Bologna, 

138;    Daroca,    138;    of   St. 

Silvester,    138;    Syon.    138; 

Toledo,  138. 
Copley,    John   Singleton,   207 ; 

Death    of   Chatham.    207; 

Death    of    Major    Pierson, 

204,  207. 
Corbridge  Church.  20. 
Corot.  194,  244. 
Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford, 

65. 
Cornwall,  12,  17. 
Cosmopolitan  Club,  227. 
Cosway,  254,  256. 
Cotes,  Francis,  200,  269. 
Cotes,  Samuel,  255. 
Cotman.  John  Sell,  219,  271; 

The    Centaur.    219.     271; 

Turning  the  Sod.  1]9.  17]. 
Cotswold  Hills,  9. 
Courbet,  242. 
Courtenay,  Exiward,  155. 
Cousins,    Samuel,    156  and  n.; 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream 

(print),  156. 
Cowper,  Cadogan,  247. 
Cox,  David,  266,  267,  269. 
Cozens,  Alexander,  261 . 
Cozens,  John,  261,  262. 
Craigmillar  Castle,  84. 
Crane,  Walter,  239. 
Crats  or  Crelz,  see  De  Critz. 
Crawhall,  Joseph,  24 1 . 
Crediton,  17. 
Crichton,  84. 
Critz,  see  De  Critz. 
Crome,John  (Old).  210,  211 


INDEX 


219.  27i  :  Landscape.  2]]; 

Mouse  hold      Heath,      21  1  ; 

Poringland  Oak.  211;  Slate 

Quarries,  211. 
Crome,  John,  Junr.,  219. 
Cromwell.  Oliver.  170,261. 
Crosby  Hall.  64. 
Croscombe      Church,     wooden 

screen  in,  72. 
Crosraguel,  84. 
Cross  of  Cong,  13. 
Cross  at  Monasterboice,  13. 
Crosses,  High,  12. 
Crosse,  Lawrence,  252,  256 
Cro2se,  Richard,  255. 
Croyland  Abbey,  64. 
CulfordHall,  118. 
Cust,  L.,  290. 
Custom  House,  Dublin,  102. 
Cuyp.  225.  267. 


D 

Da  Costa,  John,  242. 

Dahl.  Michael,  1 74. 

Dalou,  Jules,  300.  304. 

Dance  (father  and  son),  100. 

Dance,  Nathaniel,  200. 

Danube,  3. 

David,  Jean  Louis,  193. 

Dawe,  George,   1 56  n. 

Dawe,  Philip,   155. 

Davison,  Jeremiah,  1 74. 

Dawson,  Nelson,  259. 

Dayes,  Eldward,  263. 

Dean,  John,  155  n. 

De  Critz,  Emanuel,  John,  and 

Oliver,  160,  167. 
De  Grebber,  Pieter  de,  1  70. 
De  Keyser,  Hendrik,  288. 
DeKoninck,  Philip,  211. 
De  Losinga,  Herbert,  30. 
De  Morgan,  Mrs.,  235. 
Delphi,  3. 

Denham,  Sir  John,  92. 
Derby,  Lord  (collection),  250. 
DeReyn,  Jean,  163. 
Desborough,  9. 
Deverell,  W.  H..  239. 
Devis,  Arthur,  198,  263. 
Devonshire,     Duke    of,      1 64 ; 

(collection  of),  252. 
De    Wint,    Peter,    266.    267, 

269. 
Dickinson,  William,  1 55  n. 
Digby,    Wingfield    (collection), 

250. 
DionCassius,  136. 


Dirleton  Castle,  84. 

Divinity  School,  Oxford,  64, 
67. 

Dixon,  John,  1 54. 

Dixon,  Nathaniel,  252. 

Dobson,  William,  167,  169; 
Endymion  Porter,  169. 

Doncaster  Parish  Church,  111. 

Donald,  John  Milne,  241. 

Donne,  Statue  of  Dr.,  see 
Stone,  N. 

Doorway,  Maghera,  Ireland, 
5. 

Dorchester  Abbey,  Oxon, 
57. 

Dorchester  House,  296. 

Doughty,  William,  155  n. 

Downman,  John,  200,  27 1 . 

Drayton  House,  1  74. 

Drogheda,  7. 

Drury,  Alfred,  306,  307; 
Joseph  Priestley,  306. 

Dryden,  173. 

Dublin,  1 53 ;  architecture  in, 
102;  sculpture  in,  308,  309; 
City  Gallery,  244  ;  Museum, 
10,  12;  National  Gallery, 
183,  186,  197,  261,  264; 
Trinity  College,  102. 

Dundas,  Sir  R.  (collection), 
203. 

Dunkarton,  Robert,  155  n. 

Dunkirk,  169. 

Duns  (stone  forts),  1 4. 

Dunster,  half-timber  houses  at, 
82. 

Dunster  Church,  wooden  screen 
in,  72. 

Durham  (sculptor).  Memorial 
of  1851  Exhibition,  296. 

Durham  Cathedral.  30,  31,  45, 
47,  49,  57,  143;  Chapel  of 
the  Nine  Altars,  49;  Chap- 
ter House,  54  ;  Galilee,  wall- 
painting,  1 59,  1 60 ;  ironwork, 
127;  tower,  69. 

Durham,  Earl  of  (collection), 
205. 

Dyce,  William,  222,  223. 

Dyke-Acland,  Sir  Thomas 
(collection),  205. 


Earlom,  155,  157. 
Earl's  Barton,  19,21,23. 
East,  Alfred,  244. 
East,  Bergholt,  214. 
Elastbourne,  306. 

316 


Eastwood,  127. 
Eaton  Hall,  298. 
Eccleston  Church,  111. 
Edinburgh,     120,     123,     170, 

308;     architecture    in,     103, 
107;  College,  103;  Museum. 

10;    National   Gallery,    203, 

223,  224,261,264,  Portrait 

Gallery ;      Scott    Monument, 
109. 
Editha,  Queen,  137. 
Edridge,  Henry,  255,  263. 
Edward  the  Confessor,  26. 
Edward  the  Elder,  137. 
Edward  II.,  statue  of,  285. 
Edward   III.,    bronze  figure  of, 

286. 
Edward  VI.,    165;  portrait  of, 

164. 
Edward    VII.,     collection     of, 

250,  252. 
Egg,  Augustus,  225. 
Egypt,  2,  8. 
Egyptians,  126. 
Eleanor,  Queen,  bronze   figure 

of,  286. 
Eleanor  Crosses,  56,  284. 
Elgin  Cathedral,  49. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  79-81,   165, 

166. 
Ely    Cathedral,    29,    46,    52, 

53,    137;  Udy  Chapel.  51, 

53. 
Emma,  Queen,  137. 
Enamels,  256-259. 
Engleheart,  George,  255. 
Erith.  127. 
ELscomb  Church,  20. 
Eton  College,  26 1 . 
Etty,      William,      222,     223; 

Cupid    and    Psyche,     223  ; 

Nude     Study,     223;      The 

Storm,    223;     Venus,    223; 

Youth    at    the    Prow,     and 

Pleasure  at  the  Helm,  223. 
Exchange,  Copenhagen,  90. 
Exchange,  Royal,  80,  82. 
Exeter  Cathedral,   51,  52.  57, 

281. 
Exeter  College  Chapel,  111. 
Exeter,  Lord  (collection),  250. 


Faber,    John  (father  and  son), 

153. 
Faes.  see  Leiy. 
Fairfax  Jewel,  258. 


INDEX 


Fairfax,  Sir  Thomas,  258. 
Fairford  Church,  135. 
Faithorne,   William   (father  and 

son),  149  n.,  150  n.,  153. 
Farrington,  195. 
Fehr,  H.  C.  307. 
Ferguson,  49. 
Ferguson,    Munro    (collection), 

203. 
Fettiplace,   William,    figure    of, 

235. 
Fielding,  Copley,  266,  267. 
Figures   of   Richard    11.  and  his 

Queen,  Westminster,  286. 
Figures,  Peterborough,  278. 
Fildes,  Luke.  245. 

Finch,  F.  O.,  266,  267. 

Finlayson,  John,  154. 

Finlayson,  John,  Elizabeth, 
Duchess  of  Argyll  (print), 
154. 

Finney,  Samuel,  255. 

Fisher,  Edward,  154. 

Fisher,  Rev.  John,  216. 

Fisher,  Mark,  244;  Boys 
Bathing.  244  ;  On  the  River 
Stour.  244. 

FItzalan,  Lady,  statue  of,  284. 

Fitzroy  Square,  102. 

Fitzwilliam,  George,  166. 

Filzwilllam  Museum,  107. 

Flatman,  Thomas,  252,  256. 

Flaxman,  John,  291-293; 
Monument  to  Lord  Mans- 
field,292. 

Fleischmann,  Mrs.  (collection), 
203. 

Foley,  J.  H.,  294,  309:  Burke. 
294 ;  Goldsmith,  294 ; 
Qraltan.  294 ;  Outram, 
294  ;  Prince  Consort.  294. 

Forbes,  Elizabeth,  241,  242. 

Forbes,  Stanhope,  241,  242. 

Ford.  Michael,  154. 

Ford.  Onslow.  301.  302;  Bust 
of  Ridley  Corbet,  303  ;  Bust 
of  Orchardson,  303 ; 
General  Gordon.  30 1  ;  Hux- 
ley, 301  ;  Irving  as  Hamlet, 
301  ;  Lord  Stra'hnairn, 
332 ;  Memorial  to  Jowett, 
302 ;  Shelley  Memorial, 
301  ;  Rowland  Hill,  3m  . 

Forres,  1  1 . 

Foster.  Birket.  234. 

Fotheringay  Church.  64.  68. 

Foundling  Hospital.  183. 

Four  Courts.  IDublin.  102. 

Fourment,  Helena,  1 70. 


Fountains  Abbey,  37,  49; 
tower  of,  68. 

Frampton.  George.  305 ; 
Charles  Mitchell  Memorial, 
305  ;  The  Children  of  the 
Wolf  305;  Dame  Alice 
Owen,  305;  Lamia.  305; 
Lord  Salisbury,  305  ;  Mys- 
teriarch,  305;  QuintinHogg, 
305. 

Frampton.  Reginald.  235. 

Frarxe.  1-3.  131.  132. 

Francia.  Francois  Louis,  265. 

Franks.  Sir  A.,  11. 

Franks  Casket.  138.  140. 

Freeman.  47. 

Fremlel.  303. 

Frye.  Thomas.  154. 

Fuller.  Isaac,  173,  155. 

Fusell,  207. 

Furse,  C.  W..  244 ;  Cubbing 
with  the  York  arid  Ainsty, 
245;  Diana  of  the  Up- 
lands, 244 ;  Equestrian  Por- 
trait of  Lord  Roberts,  244  ; 
The  Lilac  Gown,  245  ;  The 
Return  from  the  Ride,  244. 

Fyvie  Castle,  84. 


Gainiborough,  Thomas,  157, 
188-191.  194.  196.  198. 
211.  261.  270;  Blus  Boy, 
189;  Hon.  Mrs.  Graham, 
189;  Miss  Haverfield.  189; 
Miss  Linley  and  Her 
Brother,  189;  The  Mall. 
189;  The  Morning  Walk. 
189;  Ladv  Mulgrave.  189; 
Mrs.  Robinson,  189;  Mrs. 
Sheridan,  189;  Mrs.  Sid- 
dons,  189;  The  Watering 
Place.  189. 

Gaels,  see  Galatae. 

Galatae,  3,  4. 

Galatia,  3. 

Gallerus,  Oratory  of,  1 4. 

Gain,  see  Galatde. 

Gandon.  102. 

Gandy  of  Exeter.  1 86. 

Garde-Meubles.  Paris.  139. 

Gardiner.  Starkie.  128. 

Garman.  Edward,  97. 

Garstin.  Norman.  242. 

Gascar.  173. 

Gauls,  1 26  ;  see  also  Galatae. 

Gawdie.  Sir  John.  173. 


Geddes,  Andrew,  147. 
George  III..  197. 
German,  E.:  see  Garman. 
Gibbons,    Grinling.    289-290; 

Statue  of  James  IL,  289. 
Gibbs.  98.  99,  100. 
Gib  on.     John,     293.     294: 

Tinted  Venus,  294. 

Gilbert.  Alfred.  296.  309-312; 
Bust  off.  S.  Clayton.  310; 
Bust  of  Baron  Huddleston, 
310.  311;  Bust  of  G.  F. 
Watts.  3\Q;  Howard.  3\0; 
Icarus.  309 ;  Memorial  to 
Farocett.  310;  Monument  to 
Duke  of  Clarence.  3\Q,3\\; 
Mother  and  Child.  309; 
Retable.  St.  Albans.  310. 
311;  Shaftesbury  Memorial 
Fountain.  310.  311  ;  Seal 
for  Lady  de  Vesci,  3 1 0. 

Gilpin.  Sawrey.  261. 

Gilpin.  W..  261. 

Girtln.  Thomas.  262.  263 ; 
Rue  St.  Denis.  Paris,  262. 

Glamis  Castle.  84. 

Glamis.  Lord,  portrait  of.  1 66. 

Glasgow.  1 20.  1 23  ;  architec- 
ture in.  1 07 ;  Assurance 
Company.  112;  Cathedral. 
49 ;  Museum,  203 ;  Town 
Hall.  118. 

"Glasgow  School."  240.  241. 

Glastonbury  Abbey,  145. 

Gloucester  Cathedral,  30,  62, 
88,  1 27  ;  tower  of,  64.  69. 

Goldie.  111. 

Gold  Torque  from  Limavady.  5. 

Goodrich  Court.  140. 

Gordon.  John  Watson.  204. 

Gosford  House.  118. 

Gospels.  MS.,  at  St.  Petersburg. 
143. 

Gotch.  T.  C.  235.  248. 

Gouda  Cathedral,  stained  glass 
at.  130. 

Gow,  A.  C,  246. 

Gower.  George.  165. 

Grandison.  Bishop,  141. 

Grantham  Church,  57. 

"Graphic.  The,"  273. 

Gravelot,  188. 

Greece,  126. 

Green,  Valentine,  155;  CouH' 
tess     of    Aylesford    (print), 

M55;  Lady  Betty  Delm] 
(print),  155;  Ozias  Hum- 
phrey (print),  155;  Ladie 
Waldegr<n>e  ipnnt),  155. 


317 


INDEX 


GreenhiU.  John.  1 72. 
Greenwell,  Canon,  9. 
Greenwich   Hospital,    90.    91, 

93.  98. 
Gregory.  E.  J..  239.  247. 
GreifFenhagen,  Maurice,  247. 
Gresford  Church,  tower  of.  68. 
Gresham.  Sir  Thomas.  80. 
Grey.  Earl  (collection).  205. 
Grimaldi.  William.  255. 
Grimthorpe.  Lord,  46,  98. 
Grostete,  Bishop,  44. 
Grosvenor  House,  1 89. 
Grosvenor  Gallery,  234. 
Groth,  258. 

Groult  (collection).  189. 
Grozer.  Joseph.  155  n. 
Grumbol.  Robert.  81. 
Grumbol,  Thomas,  8 1 . 
Guardi,  195. 
Gundulph,  Bishop,  30. 
Gunnersbury  House.  9 1 . 
Guthrie,  Sir  James.  24 1 . 


Haden.  F.  Seymour.  147,  148. 
Haddiscoe.  127. 
Hague  Museum.  165. 
Halesowen  Abbey.  48. 
Half- timber  houses,  82. 
Halifax  Town  Hall,  108. 
Hals,  Frans,  190,202. 
Hamburg  Kunsthalle,  240. 
Hamilton,  Hugh,  200,  207. 
Hampton   Court,    65,    71,   74, 

75,93-95,  165,  171,  176. 
Hanneman,  Adriaan,  169. 
Harberton      Church,      wooden 

screen.  72. 
Hardwicke.  82.  139. 
Harrietsham.  82. 
Harvey,  William.  151. 
Hastings,  Lord,  258. 
Hatfield,  79,  82,  305. 
Hawker.  Exlward.  173. 
Hawksmoor.  98,  99. 
Havell,  W.,  265. 
Haverfordwest  Priory,  48. 
Haydon,  B.  R.,  208. 
Hayes,  Eldwin,  243. 
Hayls,  John,   1 72  ;  Portrait  of 

Pepys,     172;     Portraits    of 

the  Russell  Family,  1  72. 
Hayman,  Francis,  198. 
Hazlehurst,  Thomas,  255. 
Hearne,  Thomas,  263. 


Helena,  Empress,  136. 

Hemy.  Napier,  242,  243  ;  The 
London  River.  243 ;  Pil- 
chards, 243. 

Henry  111.,  48 ;  bronze  figure 
of,  286. 

Henry  IV.,  132. 

Henry  V.'s  Chantry,  West- 
minster, 282 ;  statue,  284. 

Henry  VI.,  62,  63. 

Henry  VII.,  63,  64,  164. 

Henry  Vll.'s  Chapel.  West- 
minster. 64.  66.  67. 

Henry  VIII..  64,  73,  74.  76, 
78,  161,  164;  portrait  of, 
163. 

Henry,  George,  24 1 . 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Lord, 
82. 

Hereford  Cathedral,  127. 

Herkomer,  H.  von,  247, 
259 ;  Council  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  247  ;  The  Last 
Muster,  247  ;  Town  Council 
of  Landsberg,  Bavaria,  247. 

Heriot's  Hospital,  ELdinburgh, 
90. 

Hertford  Monument,  Salisbury 
Cathedral,  80. 

Hexham  crypt.  20. 

Highmore,  Joseph,  198. 

Hills,  Mrs.  E.  (collection), 
203. 

HiUiard,  Nicholas,  249.  250. 

Hirsch.  Leopold  (collection), 
193. 

Hobbema,      155,      157,     211, 

223. 

Hodges,  Charles  H.,  155. 

Hodges,  William,  195. 

Hogarth,  157,  174,  176, 
180-184.  186,  196,  270; 
Calais  Gate,  1 82  ;  Portrait 
of  Capt.  Coram,  1 83  ;  Elec- 
tion Series,  1 83  ;  Finding  of 
Moses,  181  ;  The  Good 
Samaritan,  176,  183  ;  Por- 
trait of  Himself,  182;  The 
March  to  Finchley,  183; 
Marriage  a  la  Mode,  1 82 ; 
Pool  of  Bethesda.  176; 
Portrait  of  Quin,  182; 
Rake's  Progress,  183; 
Scene  from  the  "  Indian 
Emperor,"  183;  His  Ser- 
vants, 1 82  ;  Shrimp-girl, 
182;  His  Sister.  182. 

Hogarth's  "  Analysis  of 

Beauty,"  181. 

318 


Holbein,  71,  75,78,  150,  161. 
162-164,  168,  249,  250. 
254  ;  The  Ambassadors,  64  ; 
Christina.  Duchess  of  Milan, 
162,  164;  George  Ghisze, 
1 64 ;  Meyer  Madonna, 
1 64 ;  Sir  Thomas  More, 
164;  Morrett,  164;  A 
Young  Man,  1 64 ;  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  120;  Sir  Brian 
Tuke,  164. 

"Holbein's  Gate,"  Whitehall. 
78. 

Holborn,  120. 

Holbeton  Church,  wooden 
screen  in,  72. 

Holdenby,  82. 

Hole.  W.  E.,  149. 

Holford  Collection,  258. 

Holkham  House,  99. 

Holland  House,  81,  197. 

Holland,  James,  266,  267. 

Hollar,  173. 

Holme  Pierrepoint,  285. 

Holt,  Thomzis,  8 1 . 

Holyrood,84,  162. 

Holy  Trinity  Church,  Chelsea, 
112. 

Holl,  Frank.  246;  John 
Bright,  246;  Duke  ofCleve- 
land,  246 ;  Samuel  Cousins, 
246;  Hushed.  246;  The 
Lord  ga\>e  and  the  Lord  hath 
taken  away,  246 ;  No 
Tidings  from  the  Sea,  246  ; 
Lord  Overstone,  246;  Sir 
Henry  Rawlinson.  246 ; 
Earl  Spencer,  246 ;  Lord 
Wolseley,.  246. 

Home  Office,  Whitehall,  90. 

Hone,  Horace,  255,  259. 

Hone,  Nathaniel,  198,  255, 
259. 

Hoogstraaten,  173. 

Hook.  J.  C,  242;  Luff  Boy! 
242. 

Hoppner,  157,200,201,  210. 
225,  270;  Children  Bathing, 
20 1 ;  Countess  of  Darnley 
and  Child,  201;  Douglas 
Children.  201  ;  The  Frank- 
land  Sisters,  201  ;  Lad)) 
Louisa  Manners,  201; 
William  Pitt.  20\. 

Hornel,  ELdward,  241. 

Horseguards,  99. 

Hoskins,  John.  251.256. 

Houghton.  100. 

Houses  of  Parliament,  109,  1 10. 


INDEX 


Houston,  Richard,  1  54. 

Howden  Chapter  House,  62. 

Howden  Church,  63 ;  towers 
of,  68. 

Howth  Castle.  85. 

Hudson,  Henry,  1 55  n. 

Hudson,  Thomas,  1  74. 

Hugh,  Bishop,  43.  44. 

Hughes.  Arthur.  235.  239. 

Hughes.  John.  309;  Monu- 
ment to  Queen  Victoria,  309. 

Humphrey,  Ozias,  255. 

Hunt,  W.  H.,  266,  268. 

Hunt.  Holman.  229,  232,  235, 
236  ;  The  Finding  of  Christ 
in  the  Temple,  236;  The 
Shadow  of  Death,  234; 
Strayed  Sheep,  235. 

Hunter,  Colin,  241  ;  Herring 
Market.  241  ;  Lobster 
Fishers,  241. 

Hurlstone.  F.  Y..  224. 

Hurter,  the  brothers.  258. 

Huth,  Edward  (collection). 
164. 

Huysman,  173. 

Hyde  Park  Corner,  arches  at, 
107. 


Iberians,  3,  4.  7.  1 1 . 

Ightham,  82. 

llchester.  Lord  (collection), 
183. 

He  de  France.  42. 

"Illustrated  London  News.** 
273. 

Imperial  Institute.  1 20. 

Institute  of  Chartered  Account- 
ants. 1  16. 

Institute  of  Painters  in  Water- 
colours.  269. 

Insurance  Office.  St.  James* 
Street.  117. 

lona,  12. 

Ireland,  7,  12,  142;  domestic 
architecture  in,  83,  85. 

Irvingite  Church.  Gordon 
Square,  1  10. 

Iveagh,  Lord  (collection),  193. 


Jackson,  John  R.,  156  n. 
Jackson,  Michael,  154. 
Jackson,  T.  G.,  112. 


James   I.,    87,    98,    100,    166, 

169. 
James  III.,  portrait  of,  162. 
Jamesone,  George,  169,  170. 
Janssen  van  Ceulen,  see  Jonson. 
Jarrow  Church,  20. 
Jersey,      Earl      of     (collection), 

205. 
John.  Augustus,  248,  272. 
John.    Goscombe,    305  ;    Duke 

of   Devonshire,    306;     The 

Elf,  306 ;  John  the  Baptist. 

306 ;  Morpheus,  306. 
John.  King.  47.  48. 
John  of  Eltham.  effigy  of.  285. 
John  of  Padua.  76.  77. 
Jones.   Inigo,    73,  74,  81,  87- 

92,  95.  96.  97.   103,   106, 

115,  116,  119,288. 
Jones.   John.    155;  Dulce  Do- 
mum  (print).    155;   Charles 

James    Fox     (print).     155; 

Lady  Caroline  Price  (print), 

155. 
Jonson,  Cornelius,  167,  169. 
Joseph,  Mrs.  (collection).    167, 

203,  252,  294. 
Joseph,  Samuel,  294;    Wilkie, 

294. 
Julian  (art  school),  244. 

K 

Keble  College.  Oxford.  110. 

Kedleston  Hall.   104. 

Keen.  120. 

Kemp.  109. 

Keene,  Charles.  273. 

Kenilwcrth.  127. 

Kennington.  T.  B..  248. 

Kensington  Palace  Gardens. 
No.  10,  108. 

Kent,  W..  98.  99. 

Kenton  Church,  wooden  screen. 
72. 

Kenwood,  103. 

Keppel.  Commodore,  184. 

Kerry,  14. 

Kettle.  Tilly.  198. 

Killigrew.  Anne.  173. 

King*s  College  Chapel,  Cam- 
bridge. 62.  64.  65.  132. 
1 34 ;  wooden  screen  in. 
72. 

King's  Lynn.  97. 

Kingston  Lisle,  127. 

Kirby  House,  8 1 . 

Kirkby  Hall.  82. 

Knapton.  George.  198. 

319 


Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey.  152.  153, 
174,  176,  181;  Bishop 
Aiterbury,  174;  Godert  de 
Cinkel,  174.  175;  Countess 
of  Shrewsbury,  171;  Sir  J. 
Trelawney,  1 74 ;  Windsor 
Beauties,  171. 

Kneller  Hall,  176. 

Knole,  81.  189. 

Knott.  Ralph.  120. 

Koninck,  see  De  Koninck. 


Ladbroke,  Henry.  219. 

Ladbroke.  John  Bernay,  219„ 

Ladbroke,  Robert,  219. 

Uguerre,  1 75.  1 76. 

Uidlay.  W.  J.,  248. 

Lambeth  Art  School,  303- 
305.  307. 

Lancaster.  Crouchback,  Earl  of, 
statue  of,  284. 

Lancashire,  half- timber  houses 
in.  82. 

Lance,  George,  222,  225. 

Landseer,  Eldwin,  22 1 . 

Landseer.  Eldwin.  Death  of 
the  Otter,  111. 

Unfranc.  26.  29,  43. 

Lanier,  Nicolas,  169. 

Lathangue,  247. 

Uuder.  Robert  Scott.  240. 

Lavenham,  82. 

Lavery,  J.,  24. 

Law  Courts,  1  10. 

Uwless,  M.  J.,  235,  239. 

Lawrence,  Thomas.  157,  172, 
201.  204-206,  210.  226. 
270 ;  Lady  Acland  and 
Sons,  205 ;  John  Julius 
Angerstein,105,  270;  Lady 
Elizabeth  Belgraoe,  205 ; 
Thomas  Campbell,  205 ; 
Lord  and  Lady  Castlereagh, 
205  ;  Cardinal  Consahi, 
205 ;  Lady  Dover  and 
Child,  205;  Miss  Farren, 
205;  Arthur  F itzjames,  205; 
Four  Portraits  of  Children, 
205 ;  Countess  Cower  and 
Child,  205  ;  Countess  Gre]) 
and  Daughter,  10b;  Warren 
Hastings,  205.  270;  Master 
Lamhton,  205  ;  Charles  3rd 
Marquess  of  Londonderry, 
205;  Mrs.  Maguire,  205; 
Miss    Mary    Moulton-Bat' 


INDEX 


reU,  205;  Pope  Pius  VII., 
205 :  Wellinglon.  205 ; 
Wilberforce.  205. 

Lawson,  Cecil,  243,  244; 
A  ugust  Moon,  243  ;  Barden 
Moor,  243;  The  Cloud, 
243  ;  Hof>  Gardens  of  Eng- 
land, 243 ;  The  Minister's 
Garden,  243. 

Layer  Marney  Hall,  Elssex, 
65,  75. 

Leathart  collection,  23 1 . 

Leeds  City  Square,  306. 

Lee,  T.  S..  248,  304. 

Leicester,  127;  Gallery,  227. 

Leighton,  Lord,  245,  272, 
294  ;  Athlete  struggling  with 
a  Python,  294  ;  The  Slug- 
gard, 294. 

Lely,  Sir  Peter,  157,  169, 
170-174;  Duke  of  Albe- 
marie,  171  ;  Lady  Bellasvs, 
171;  Charles  II.,  171; 
Charles  Dormer,  Earl  of 
Carnarvon,  and  Family, 
171  ;  Mary  Davis,  171  ; 
NellGwyn,  171;  Le/y.  171; 
Mrs.  Jane  Middleton,  1 72  ; 
Wycherley,  171. 

Le  Mans  Cathedral,  stained 
glass  at,  130. 

Leonardo,  247. 

Leslie,  C.  R.,  222,  224.  225. 

Le  Sueur,  290. 

Lewis,  Isle  of,  140. 

Lewis,  J.  F..238. 

Uchfield,  17;  Cathedral,  52; 
stained  glass  in,  134. 

Ligurians,  3,  4. 

Ulle,  216. 

Uncoln  Cathedral.  40-45.  49, 
57,  131,  276;  iron  grille  in, 
128;  presbytery,  49;  sculp- 
tures in,  278-280;  vest- 
ments, 137. 

Lincoln's  Inn,  226. 

Limnerslease,  227. 

Lindisfarne,  12. 

Undisfarne  MS.,  143. 

Littlecole,  82. 

Liverpool  Gallery.  233.  236. 

Llananno  Church.  wooden 
screen  in,  72. 

Local  Government  Board 
Offices,  118. 

Lochar  Moss,  1  1 . 

Lockie,  Nicholas,  165. 

Loftie,  97. 

Logsdail,  WiUiam,  245. 


London,  fire  of,  92. 
Londonderry,       Marquess       of 

(collection),  205. 
Longford  Castle,  8 1 . 
Longleat,  76,77,79,81. 
Losely,  82. 

Losinga,  Herbert  de,  30. 
Lothian.       Lord       (collection). 

197, 
Loudan,  Mouat,  247. 
Louis  XIV..  257. 
Louvre,  the,  203,  258. 
Lucas,  David,  156  n.,  157. 
Lucas,  Seymour,  246. 
Lucatelli,  194. 
Lucchesi,  304 ;    Destiny,  304  ; 

A  Flight  of  Fancy,  3QA. 
Lupton,  Thomas,  156  n. 
Luton  House.  103. 
Luttrell,  Edward,  152. 
Lyndhurst,  Lord.  207. 
Lyne,  Richard,  165. 
Lydd  Church,  2 1 . 
Lyemore,  82. 
Lyminge,     Saxon    remains    at, 

20. 


M 

MacArdell,    James.    153.    154; 

Lady  Chambers  (print).  1 54. 
Macbeth.  R.  W..  177. 
Macdowell.  Patrick,  294. 
Macgregor,  Archibald,  235. 
Mackenzie,       Marshall,       112, 

117. 
Macklin,  207. 

Madonna,  York  Minster,  281 . 
Magdalen      College,      Oxford, 

64  ;    screen   at,    1 34  ;   tower 

of,  68. 
Majano,  Giovanni  da,  74,  75. 
Malouel,  Jean,  161. 
Maltons,  the,  210,  263. 
Malvern   Abbey,    stained    glass 

at,  134. 
Manby,  Thomas,  173. 
Manchester  Gallery    223,  231, 

241,243. 
Manet,  190. 
Mann,  Harrington,  241. 
Mansard,  96. 
Mansfield.  197. 
Mansion  House,  1 00. 
Mantegna,  236. 
Maoris,  8. 
Mappin's  Shop,  Oxford  Street, 

117. 

320 


Marble  Arch  Gates,  129. 

Marchi,  Giuseppe,  155. 

Margaret  of  Denmark,  portrait 
of,  162. 

Margaret  Roding,  127. 

Marischal  College,  Aberdeen, 
112. 

Marks,  H.  S. 

Marlow,  William,  263. 

Marseilles,  126. 

Marshall,  sculptor,  290. 

Martin,  David,  201. 

Martin,  Mrs.  T.  (collection), 
201. 

Martineau,  R.  B.,  236. 

Mary,  Queen,  165. 

Maurice,  Bishop,  30. 

Maxstoke,  127. 

May,  Phil,  273. 

Mayer,  102. 

Mayerne,  Theodore  de,  257. 

McGillivray,  308. 

McKennal,  Bertram,  307 ; 
Circe,  307  ;  Diana  Wound- 
ed, 307  ;  Earth  and  the 
Elements,  307 ;  For  She 
Sitieth  on  a  Seat  in  the  High 
Places  of  the  City,  307. 

McTaggart,  William,  241. 

Meath,  7. 

Medical  Association  Building, 
117. 

Mee,  Mrs.,  255. 

Meissonier,  246. 

Melbourne,  307. 

Melrose  Abbey,  58,  65. 

Meres,  166. 

Mereworth,  Kent,  1 00. 

Merton  College,  Oxford ; 
Chapel,  53,  64;  tower  of, 
68;  stained  glass,  133. 

Meryon,  147,  148. 

Mesopotamia,  126. 

Metropolitan  Museum,  New 
York,  223. 

Metsu,  189. 

Metz,  MSS.  at,  144. 

Meyer,  Henry,  1 56  n. 

Meyer,  Jeremiah,  258. 

Meyrick  Collection,  1 40. 

Michelangelo.  98,  296. 

Middleton  quoted,  145. 

Mijtens,  Daniel,  169. 

Millais,  John  Everett,  229, 
236-238,  268;  Lord  Bea- 
consfield,  237 ;  Mrs.  Bis- 
choffsheim,  237 ;  Boyhood 
of  Raleigh.  237;  Black 
Brunsmicker,      237 ;      John 


INDEX 


Bright.  237;  Bubbles.  238. 
239;  The  Carpenter's  Shop, 
236;  Chill  October.  237; 
Christ  in  the  House  of  His 
Parents.  238;  Death  of 
Ophelia.  236 :  Eve  of  St. 
Agnes,  237,  238;  Ferdinand 
and  Ariel,  236;  Simon 
Fraser.  237  ;  The  Qambler's 
Wife.  237  ;  Gladstone.  237, 
238 ;  Sir  Gilbert  Greenall, 
237 ;  Hearts  are  Trumps. 
229.  237  ;  /.  C.  Hook,  237, 
238  ;  The  Huguenot,  237  ; 
Sir  Isumbras  at  the  Ford, 
237;  Mrs.  Jopling,  237; 
Miss  Nina  Lehmann,  237  ; 
Lorenzo  and  Isabella,  236 ; 
Mariana  in  the  Moated 
Grange,  236;  Mrs.  F.  H. 
Myers,  237  ;  Cardinal  New- 
man. 237  ;  The  Order  of 
Release.  237  ;  Mrs.  Perugini, 
237  ;  Lady  Peggy  Primrose, 
237  :  The  Prescribed  Royal- 
ist, 237  ;  The  Rescue.  237; 
The  Return  of  the  Dove  to 
the  Ark.  236  ;  Lord Shaftes- 
bun,.  237;  Sisters.  237; 
Souvenir  of  Velazquez.  236, 
237;  Stella.  237  ;  Tennyson. 
237,  238;  Dorothy  Thorpe. 
237 ;  The  Vale  of  Rest, 
237;  Vanessa,  237;  The 
Woodman's  Daughter,  236. 

Miller  (collection),  237. 

Miller.  Andrew,  153. 

Milton,  Northants,  166. 

Modern  Gallery,  Venice,  245. 

Moira.  Gerald.  239. 

Moliere,  225. 

Monasterboice.  13. 

Moncrieff,  Lord  (collection). 
203. 

Monkwearmouth,  Durham.  20. 

Montacute,  81 . 

Montford.  Paul.  307. 

Monument.  The.  93. 

Moore.  Albert.  245,  246,  272  ; 
Midsummer,  246  ;  The  Open 
Book.  246;  The  Quartet, 
246 ;  Silver,  246 ;  A  Summer 
Night,  246. 

Moore.  Henry,  242,  243; 
■  Clear  Shining  after  Rain. 
243  ;  June  Sea.  243  ;  New- 
haven  Packet.  243;  A 
Perfect  Day  for  a  Cruise, 
243. 


Moore.  Thomas,  statue  of.  309. 

Morland,  George,  220;  Black 
Monday,  22 1  ;  Interior  of  a 
Stable,  221;  Lavinia,  221; 
A  Stable,  221;  Vi^t  to  the 
Child  at  Nurse,  220. 

Moreland,  George  Henry,  220 ; 
The  Oyster  Seller.  220. 

Moreland.  Henry  Robert.  220. 

Moreland,  Maria.  220. 

Moreton  Old  Hall.  82. 

Morett,  164  n. 

Morgan,  H.  Pierpont  (collec- 
tion), 205. 

Morris.  William,  232.  234. 

Mortlake.  tapestry  factory  at, 
139,251. 

Morton,  Lord,  174,201. 

Moser,  George  Michael,  258. 

Moulton- Barrett  collection,  205. 

Mountford,  117. 

Muirhead,  Lionel  (collection), 
203. 

MiiUer,  W.  J.,  266.  267. 

Mullins.  Roscoe.  304. 

Mulready.  William,  222.  225  ; 
Choosing  the  Wedding 
Gown.  224 ;  The  Sonnet, 
224. 

Munich  Pinacothek,  223. 

Murphy.  John.  155  n. 

Murray.  Faixfax,  235. 

Mycenae.  8. 


N 

Nanteuil.  1 50  n. 

Napoleon.  205. 

Nasmyth.  Patrick,  222,  223. 

National  Gallery,  London,  168, 

174,    188,    189.  201.  207. 

211.   214.   217,  221,   222. 

223,  237,  264,  270;  design 

for,  110. 
National     Gallery     of    Ireland, 

see  under  Dublin. 
National  Gallery    of    Scotland, 

see  under  Eldinburgh. 
National        Portrait       Gallery. 

London,  167.  172.  182.  193. 

201.205.227.271. 
Natural  History  Museum.  South 

Kensington.  30 1 . 
Naylor.  Mrs.  (collection).  223. 
Neeld,  Sir  Audley  (collection). 

189. 
Nelson.  76. 
Nesbitt.  Charlton.  151. 

321 


Netley.  Abbey.  49. 

Neustria.  25. 

Newark.  83  ;  Church,  57. 

Newcastle,  305. 

Newcastle     House,      Lincoln's 

Inn  Fields.  97. 
New     College.      Oxford,     62; 

Chapel,      reredos     in,      70; 

Screen,  134. 
New      English      Art       Club, 

248. 
Newgate  Prison,  100. 
New  Grange,  7.  _ 
Newlyn  School,  241,242. 
Newton  (miniaturist),  255. 
Newton,    Gilbert  Stuart,    222, 

225  ;   Abelard,  lib  ■    Capt. 

Macheath,  225  ;  Yorick  and 

the  Grisette.  225. 
New        Zealand        Chambers, 

Leadenhall  Street,  115. 
Nixon,  James.  255. 
Nollekens.  Joseph.  291. 
Nonsuch  Palace.  82. 
Norman  Conquest.  276. 
Normandy.  26. 
Northcote.  207. 
Northumbria.  143,  145. 
Norwich    Cathedral,    27,     30, 

161  ;  Cloisters.  64. 
Norwich    School.    210.     211. 

217-219. 
Notre    Dame.    Paris.   41.   47; 

iron  hinges  at.  127.  128. 
Noyon  Cathedral,  41. 


Ockwells  Manor,  82. 

Oldcastle,  7,  8. 

Oliver,  Isaac,  250.  251  ;  Sack- 
ville.  Earl  of  Dorset,  25 1 . 

Oliver.  Peter.  250.  251. 

Opie.  John.  200.  207  ;  Murder 
ofRizzio.  207. 

Opus  Anglicanum.  138. 

Opus  Britannicum,  1  1 . 

Orchardson.  William  Quiller, 
240;  Sir  Walter  Qilbev. 
240;  Napoleon  on  Board 
the  Bellerophon,  240;  A 
Tender  Chord.  240;  Vol- 
taire,  240. 

O^Jen.  William.  248. 

Oxenbrigge  Monument,  Bride 
Church.  Sussex.  77. 

Oxford.  81.  112.  301;  Botani- 
cal  Gardens,    288 ;     Cathe- 


INDEX 


dral.  68;  Gallery.  236; 
Renaissance  glass  at,  135; 
Radcliffe  Ubrary.  100;  Shel- 
donian  Theatre,  92 ;  Uni- 
versity Galleries,  1 08 ;  Union, 
232. 
Oxford  Street,  120. 


Paine,  J.,  104. 

Paisley,  304. 

Palladio,  96. 

Palazzo  Farnese,  98. 

Panini,  194. 

Paris,  Matthew,  25. 

Park,  Thomas,  155  n. 

Pars,  William,  263. 

Pastel,  269. 

Paterson,  James,  241. 

Parthenon,  297. 

Paul  (monk),  28,  29. 

Payne.  William,  263. 

Peake,  Robert,   165,  169. 

Pearson  (architect),  1 10. 

Peckham,  Archbishop,  284. 

Pegram,  F.,  306. 

Pembroke       College      Chapel, 

Cambridge,  92. 
Penicuik,  1  76,  206. 
Pennethorne,  108. 
Penshurst  Place,    58. 
Pepys,  Samuel,  166,  177. 
Perugini,  C.  E.,  245. 
Perrier,  Francois,  1  75. 
Peter  the  Great,  261. 
Peterborough     Cathedral,     68, 

127. 
Pether,  William.  154,  155. 
Petitots,  the,  130. 
Petitot,  Jean,  257.  258. 
Pettie,  John,  246. 
Petworth.  289. 
Phidias,  226.  297. 
Philip  Augustus,  32. 
Phillip.  John,  222,   224;    La 

Gloria,  224. 
Phoeaeans,  the,  126. 
Pickering,      Evelyn,     see     De 

Morgan,  Mrs. 
PieCa,  at  Breadsall.  285. 
Pine,  Robert  Edge.  200. 
Pinwell.  George,  268. 
Pite,  Beresford,  112. 
Pitman,  Mrs.  (collection),  203. 
Place,  Francis,   1 52. 
Plimer,  Andrew,  254. 
Plimer,  Nathaniel,  254, 


Pocock.  Nicolas,  263. 

Pomeroy,  G.,  304 ;  Burns, 
304. 

Pond.  Arthur.  198.269. 

Poole,  Paul  Falconer,  225. 

Portman  Square,  Mrs.  Mon- 
tagu's house  in.  102. 

Portland,  Duke  of  (collection), 
252. 

Portland,  Earl  of,  portrait  of, 
167. 

Portland  Place,  102. 

Poussin,  Caspar,  209. 

Powis,  Lord  (collection).  193. 

Poynter.  E.  J.,  245. 

Pre  -  Raphaelite  Brotherhood. 
229-239,  248. 

Preston  Museum,  304. 

Prewitt,  William,  259. 

Prinsep,  Mrs.  (collection),  237. 

Prinsep.  Val.  245. 

Prior,  E.  S.,  42  n. 

Prior  and  Gardner,  277,  278, 
280  n. 

Prout,  Samuel,  266,  267. 

Pugin,  Augustus,  109,  110. 

Purbeck  marbles,  282,  283. 

Purcell,  Richard,  154. 

Pyrenees,  the,  3. 


Radcliffe  Library,  see  under 
Oxford. 

Raeburn,  Henry,  157.  190, 
201-204,210;  Mrs.  Camp, 
bell.  203;  Mrs.  James 
Campbell,  203 ;  Sir  John 
and  Lady  Clerk.  203; 
Major  Clunes.  203 ;  Mrs. 
Cruikshank,  203  ;  Viscount 
Duncan,  203 ;  The  Lord 
President  Dundas,  203 ; 
Robert  Ferguson,  203 ; 
General  Sir  Ronald  Fergu- 
son. 203;  William  Ferguson. 
203  ;  Glengarry.  203  ;  The 
MacDonalds  of  Clanronald. 
203;  The  MacNab.  203; 
Male  Portrait.  203;  Lord 
Newton,  203 ;  Portrait  of 
Raeburn.  203 ;  Lad);  Rae- 
burn, 203;  Sir  John  Sinclair, 
203  ;  Nathaniel  Spens,  203  ; 
Ladv  Steuart  of  Culross, 
203 ;  John  Tait  and  his 
Grandson.  203;  Mrs.  W. 
Urquhart,       203 ;       James 

322 


Wardrop,  203  ;  John  Wau- 
chope,   203;    Rev.    Sir    H. 
M.  IVellwood.  203. 
Ramsay.     Allan,     197;    Mrs. 

Allan  Ramsay,  197. 
Ramsbury,  17. 
Raphael  cartoons,  1 39. 
Raveningham  Hall,  1 66. 
Raveningham.   iron    hinges    at, 

127. 
Ravesteyn,      see     Van     Rave- 

steyn. 
Raynham  Park,  Norfolk,  90. 
Reader,  William,  1  72. 
Reculver,    Sajron     remains    at, 

20. 
Regent  Street,  120. 
Register      House,      Edinburgh, 

103. 
Reform  Club.  108. 
Reid,  J.  R..  244. 
Reinach,  S.,  6. 
Rembrandt,     147,     148,     149. 

154,  172,  186,222,299. 
Remigius,  Bishop,  276. 
Repton,  crypt,  24. 
Reyn,  Jean  de.  see  De  Reyn. 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  104,  134. 
154-157,    184,    188.     190, 
194-196,    198.    200,    204. 
207,  244.  270 ;  The  Age  of 
Innocence,       188;      Angels' 
Heads,     1 88 ;      Caricatures, 
186;     Mrs.    Carnac,     188; 
Lady     Cockburn     and    her 
Children,        188;        Master 
Crewe,   1 88  ;   Lady  Crosbie, 
1 86  ;  Duchess  of  Devonshire 
and    Child.     186;     Charles 
James    Fox.     1 88 ;     Garrick 
between      Tragedy       and 
Comedy.  1 86  ;    The  Graces, 
188;  Lord  Heathfield.  188; 
Dr.    Johnson.    180;     Marl- 
borough Family  Group.  1 88  ; 
The    Nativity.     134;    Nelh 
O'Brien.  188. 
Reynolds'  "Discourses,"  207. 
Reynolds,  S.  W.,  1  56  n. 
Revett,  Nicholas,  105. 
Rheims  Cathedral.  47. 
Rhind.  Birnie,  308. 
Rhine,  the,  3. 
Rhone,  the,  3. 

Richard  II..   62  ;  bronze  figure 
of,    286;     portrait   of,     160. 
162. 
Richardson,  Jonathan,  174. 
Rickman,  38. 


INDEX 


Ridley,  Lord  (collection).  225. 

Rieder :  see  Reader. 

Rijk's  Museum,  Amsterdam, 
167. 

Riley.  John.  173.  175;  The 
Scullion,  173. 

Ripen,  crypt.  20. 

Riviere,  Briton,  246 ;  Herd  of 
Swine,  247. 

Roberts,  Humphrey  (collec- 
tion), 240. 

Robertson,  Andrew,  255. 

Robertson,  Graham,  235. 

Robinson,  Cayley,  235. 

Roche,  Alexander,  241. 

Rochester  Cathedral,  276 ; 
Chapter-house,  57. 

Rochester  Castle,  30. 

Rochester,  Saxon  remains  at, 
20. 

Rollins,  J.  Wenlock,  307. 

Rome,  186. 

Romney,  George,  155-157, 
191-194,  196,  198,  207, 
270  ;  Lady  Beauchamp 
Proctor.  193;  Mrs.  Tanker- 
ville  Chamberlain,  1 93  ; 
Catherine  and  Sarah  Chol- 
meley,  1 93 ;  Hon.  Char- 
lotte Clive,  1 93  ;  Countess  of 
Derby,  193;  Children  of 
Earl  Gower,  192,  193; 
Lady  Hamilton,  193;  Lady 
Hamilton  Spinning,  1 93  ; 
Mrs.  Johnson,  1 93 ;  Mrs. 
Jordan,  1 93  ;  Countess  of 
Mansfield,  193:  Lady 
Prescott  and  Family,  193; 
Mrs.  Raikes,  193;  Mrs. 
iPerdita)  Robinson,  193; 
Mrs.  Russell  and  Child, 
193 ;  Ladies  Caroline  and 
Elizabeth  Spencer,  193; 
Lord  Stafford  in  a  Van 
Dyck  Dress,  193;  Miss 
Vernon  as  Hebe,  193;  Lady 
Arabella  Ward,  193;  Lady 
Warwick  and  Children, 
193;  Mrs.  Woodley,  194. 

Romsey,  rood  at,  276. 

Rooke,  T.  M..  235. 

Rooker,  Michael  Angelo,  263. 

Rosebery,  Lord  (collection), 
201. 

Ross  (miniaturist),  255. 

Rossetri,  Dante  Gabriel,  229- 
230.  232-235.  268;  Beata 
Beatrix,  233;  The  Blue 
Bower,  233 ;   The  Beloved, 


233 ;  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini, 
233  ;  Dante's  Dream,  233  ; 
The  Girlhood  of  Mary 
Virgin,  232;  Lady  Lilith, 
233. 

Rossetti.  William  Michael.  230. 

Rothschild,  Lord  (collection), 
186.  189.201. 

Rouen  Cathedral,  41. 

Round  Towers,  15. 

Rouquet,  258. 

Rovezzano,  Benedetto  da,  76. 

Rubens,  139,  170,  175,  190, 
206,  222. 

Runciman,  Alexander,  1 76, 
206. 

Runciman,  John,  1 76. 

Rupert,  Prince,  151,  152. 

Ruskin,  151,  211,  230,  234, 
239. 

Russell,  Sir  George  (collec- 
tion), 193. 

Russell,  John,  269. 

Rutland.  Duke  of.  169. 

Ruysdael,  243. 

Rydge,  Richard.  79. 

Rylands  Library,  Manchester, 
112. 


St.  Alban's  Cathedral,  28-31, 
46,  276;  iron  grille  in,  128; 
iron  hinges  in,  1 27 ;  reredos, 
64;  retable,  310;  Walling- 
ford  screen  at,  69;  wall- 
painting,  159,  160. 

St.  Anne's  Church,  Haarlem, 
92. 

St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital, 
176. 

St.  Benet's  Tower,  Cambridge, 
24. 

St.  Briach's  Castle,  47. 

St.  Bride's  Church,  Fleet 
Street.  93. 

St.  Columba's  Church.  London, 
111. 

St.  Dunstan,  137,  145. 

St.  Etheldreda's  Chapel,  Ely 
Place,  Holborn,  53. 

St.  Finn  Bar  Cathedral,  Cork, 
110. 

St.  Frideswide's  Church,  22, 
23  ;  Shrine.  70. 

St.  Gall.  Library  of,  143. 

St.  Gaudens,  Augustus,  Par- 
nell.  309. 

323 


St.  George's  Church,  Blooms- 
bury,  99. 

St.  George's  Church,  Hanover 
Square,  100. 

St.  George's  Chapel,  Windsor, 
65,  66. 

St.  George's  Hall,  Liverpool, 
107,  304. 

St.  Germans.  17. 

St.  James's  Street,  1 20. 

St.  John,  Oliver,  91. 

St.  John's  Church,  West- 
minster. 100. 

St.  John's  College.  Oxford.  64. 

St.  John's  Chapel.  Tower  of 
London.  28. 

St.  John  the  Evangelist's 
Church.    Red    Lion   Square, 

..  ^'^• 

"St.      John's     Wood     School, 

The,"  246. _ 

St.  Lawrence's  Church,  Eve- 
sham, 68. 

St.  Louis,  146. 

St.  Luke's  Church,  Chelsea, 
109. 

St.  Nicholas'  Church,  New- 
castle, spire  of,  69. 

St.  Martin's  Church,  Canter- 
bury, 20. 

Si.  Martin's  in  the  Fields, 
London,  99. 

St.  Mary  Redclyffe,  Bristol, 
57. 

St.  Mary's  Abbey,  York,  49. 

St.  Mary's,  Beverley,  57. 

St.  Mary's  Cathedral,  Edin- 
burgh, 111. 

St.  Mary's  Church,  Oxford, 
64  ;  porch  of,  288  ;  tower  of, 
69. 

St.  Mary's  Church,  Taunton, 
tower  of,  68. 

St.  Mary's  Church.  Warwick, 
62. 

St.  Mary  Woolnoth,  Lombard 
Street,  London,  99. 

St.  Michael's  Church,  Cov- 
entry, spire  of,  69. 

St.  Michael's  Church,  Ham- 
burg, 111. 

St.  Pancras  Church,  Canter- 
bury. 20. 

St.  Pancras  Church.  London, 
^107. 

St.  Patrick's  Bell,  Shrine  qf, 
13. 

St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  London, 
30,  89,  93,  94.   120.   176. 

y2 


INDEX 


206,  227,  289.  296;  iron 
grille  in,  130;  Phcenix  at, 
289. 

St.  Paul's  Church,  Covent 
Garden,  90. 

St.  Peter  Mancroft,  Norwich, 
timber  roof  of,  71. 

St.  Peter's  Church,  Rome, 
94. 

St.  Saviour's  Church,  Soulh- 
wark.  111. 

St.  Stephen's  Abbey,  Caen, 
26,  29,  38.^ 

St.  Stephen's  Chapel,  see 
under  Westminster  Abbey. 

St.  Stephen's  Church,  Wal- 
brook,  92.^ 

St.  Swithin's  Church,  Win- 
chester, iron  grille  at,  1 28. 

St.  Vincent's  Church,  Cork, 
111. 

Sackville,  Stopford  (collection), 
174. 

Saffron  Walden,  82. 

Salisbury,  216. 

Salisbury  Cathedral,  44,  45, 
49,  58,  131  ;  Chapter-house 
of,  49,  55 ;  sculptures  at, 
278-280. 

Salisbury  Chantry,  Christ- 
church,  Hants,  70,  77. 

Salon,  Paris,  216. 

Salting  (collection),  141. 

Samlesbury,  82. 

Sandby,  Paul,  260,  261. 

Sanderson,  Arthur  (collection), 
203. 

Sandys,  Frederick,  236. 

San  Giovanni  Laterano,  1 38. 

Sargent,  John,  157,  190,240. 

Say,  William,  156  n. 

Scotland,  12,  7,  1 43 ;  archi- 
tecture in,  83,  84,  123; 
sculpture  in,  308. 

Scott,  Gilbert,  31  n,  39  n,  46, 
55,56.90,  111. 

Scott  Monument,  Edinburgh, 
109. 

Scott,  Samuel,  1 74. 

Scottish  National  Portrait 
Gallery.see  under  Edinburgh. 

Seaton,  Delaval,  98. 

Sedding  (architect),  1  12. 

Selby  Abbey,  58. 

Senate  House,  Cambridge, 
100. 

Senlis  Cathedral,  41. 

Sens  Cathedral,  4 1 . 

Serres,  Dominic,  26 1 . 


Seymour      Jane,     Portrait     of, 

165. 
Shakespeare,  207,  225. 
Sharpe,  W.,  150. 
Shaw,  Byam,  235. 
Shaw,   Richard  Norman,    115, 

116,  122. 
Sheldonian    Theatre,     Oxford, 

92,  175. 
Shelley,  Samuel,  255. 
Shepherd,  William.  173. 
Sherborne  Abbey,  69. 
Sherwin,  William,  152. 
Sherwin,  John  Keyse,  1 50. 
Shields,  Frederick.  239. 
Shrewsbury,   half-timber  houses 

at,  82. 
Shute,  John,  76,  77,  165. 
Siegen,  Ludwig  von,  151,   1 54. 
Silchester,  17. 
Simon,  Jean,  152. 
Simonds,  George,  304 ;    Gerd, 

304. 
Sims.      Charles,      247 ;      The 

Fountain,  247. 
Skellig-Michael.  14. 
Slade  School.  244. 
Sliath  na  Calliaghe.  7. 
Smart.  John.  254.  256.  292. 
Smirke,  Robert.  108.207. 
Smith.  John,  1  52. 
Smith,  John  Orrin,  151. 
Smith,     John     Raphael,     1 55, 

269,     271;     Pascal     Paoli 

(print),  155. 
Smithson,     Robert,      76,     77, 

81. 
Soane      Museum,      96,      183, 

289. 
Society  of  Arts,  206. 
Society   of   Painters  in  Water- 
colours,  265,  266. 
Soest,  1 70  and  n,  1 73. 
Soissons.  MSS.  at,  144. 
Solomon,  Simeon,  239. 
Solomon,  S.  J.,  248. 
Somerscales,      Thomas,      243 ; 

Off  Valparaiso.  243. 
Somerset  House,  82,  101,   102, 

106,  186. 
Southall,  J.  E.,  239. 
Southwell  Minster,  49. 
South  Wingfield  Manor  House, 

64. 
Sparsholt.  127. 
Spartali,  Marie.  235. 
Spencer,  Elarl  (collection).  252, 

258. 
Spencer,  Gervase,  259. 

324 


Spencer    House,     St.     James, 

London.  100. 
Speke  Hall.  82. 
Spicer.  Henry,  259. 
Spilsbury,  Jonathan,  155. 
Spooner,  Charles,  1 54. 
Stair,  Lord  (collection),  197. 
Stanhope,  Spencer,  235. 
Stannard,  Joseph.  2 1 9. 
Stark.  James.  219. 
Staverton      Church,       wooden 

screen  in,  72. 
Steele  (painter),  190. 
Steer,  P.  Wilson,  248. 
Stephens,  F.  G.,  229. 
Sterne,  225. 
Stevens,  Alfred,  89,  271,  272. 

295.296.309.312;  Cartoon 

for     Isaiah      group,      296; 

Caryatids,   296 ;    Decorative 

sculpture       in       Dorchester 

House,   296 ;    Design  for  a 

Memorial  of  the  1851  Ex  hi- 

bition.    296;     Truth,    296; 

Valour.     296;     Wellington 

Monument,  295,  296. 
Stevens.  Richard.  165. 
Stewart,  Rev.  C.  J.  (collection), 

211. 
Stillingfleet      Church,       Yorks, 

127. 
Stillman.  see  Spartali. 
Stole     and     Manciple     of     St. 

Cuthbert.  137. 
Stone  Church.  20. 
Stonehenge.  1.  2.  5. 
Stone.  Henry  (Old).  169,  289. 
Stone.     Nicholas.     169.     288; 

Statue  of  Dr.  Donne.  289 ; 

Monument    of    Sir    Julius 

Caser,  289. 
Stolhard.  Thomas.  177,  207. 
Strange,  Robert,  1 50  n. 
Strathmore.  166. 
Strawberry  Hill,  108. 
Streater.  Robert.  175. 
Street.  G.E..  110. 
Strensham      Church,      wooden 

screen  in.  72. 
Strete  or  Streles.  Gwillim,  165. 
Strudwick.  J.  M..  235. 
Stuart,  James.  105. 
Stubbs.  George,  220. 
Stubbs.  George  Townley.  1 56n. 
Subiaco,  Kneeling  Boy  of,  292, 

293. 
Suez.  2. 

Suffolk.  Brandon.  Duke  of,  163. 
Sullivan  Luke,  255. 


INDEX 


Sun  Fire  Office,  Threadneedle 
Street,  108. 

Surrey,  Elarl  of,  portrait  of,  165. 

Sutherland,  Duke  of  (collec- 
tion), 193,205,252. 

Sutton  Place,  75. 

Swallowfield,  97. 

Swan,  J.  M.,  246,  272,  303. 

304;   Fata  Morgana,   304; 

Leopard  and  Tortoise,  304; 

Orpheus       charming        the 

Beasts,     304;      Puma    and 

Macaw,  304;  The  Prodigal 

Son,  246. 
Swaythling,    Lord   (collection), 

214. 
Swinbrook  Church,  Oxon,  285 . 
Symeon,  Abbot,  29. 
Syria,  126. 


Tadema,  Alma,  245. 

Talman,  97. 

Tate  Gallery,  211,  212,  223, 
225.  226,  227,  231.  233. 
236,  237.  240,  242.  243. 
245-247.  294,  296,  307. 

Tattershall  Castle,  Lines,  64. 

Taubman,  307. 

Tayler,  Campbell,  247. 

Temple  House,  93. 

Tennant,  Sir  E.  (collection), 
186,  193,201. 

Terborch,  189. 

Tewkesbury  Abbey,  30. 

Thames,  shield  found  in,  1 0. 

Thomas  de  Leghton  (Leighton 
Buzzard).  128. 

Thomas,  E.  Brumwell,  120. 

Thomas,  J.  Havard,  248,  308; 
Lycidas,  308;  The  Slave, 
308. 

Thorbum,  255. 

Thornbury  Castle,  Gloucester- 
shire. 65. 

Thoresby.  97. 

Thome- Waite,  268. 

Thornhill,  James.  176,  181. 
206. 

Thornton  Abbey,  Lines,  63. 

Thornycroft,  Hamo,  301 ; 
Artemis,  301;  Bishop 
Creighton,  30 1 ;  Cromwell, 
301;  Edward  I..  301; 
Gladstone,  301;  Bishop 
Goodwin,  301  ;  General 
Qordon,  301;  The  Mower, 
301;  reucer,301. 


Thorpe  Hall.  91. 

Thorpe.  John,  81. 

ThorwsJdsen,  295. 

Tiepolo.  G.  B.,  196. 

Titian,  222. 

Toft.  Albert,  306,  307;  Spirit 
of  Contemplation,  307 ; 
Victory,  307. 

Tomb  of  the  Earl  of  Arundel, 
Arundel,  70;  of  Edward  II., 
Gloucester  Cathedral.  56; 
of  Edward  III.,  Westminster 
Abbey,  56,  62.  70;  of 
Queen  EJeanor  (iron  grille), 
Westminster.  1 28 ;  of  Gower, 
Southwark  Cathedral,  70 ; 
at  Holme  Pierrepoint,  285; 
of  Henry  IV.,  Canterbury 
Cathedral,  70;  of  Henry 
VII.,  Westminster  Abbey, 
76,  311;  of  Humphrey, 
Duke  of  Gloucester,  St. 
Alban's  Cathedral,  70;  of 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  West- 
minster Abbey,  296;  of 
Nelson,  Westminster  Abbey, 
76;  of  Archbishop  Peck- 
ham,  Canterbury  Cathedral, 
57;  of  Cecil  Rhodes,  304; 
of  Richard  II.  and  his  Queen, 
Westminster  Abbey,  63,  70; 
of  Archbishop  Warham, 
Canterbury  Cathedral,  70; 
of  the  Earl  of  Warwick, 
Warwick,  70;  of  William 
of  Wykeham,  Winchester 
Cathedral,  70. 

Tompson,  Richard,  1 52. 

Toms,  Peter,  157. 

Tom  Tower,  Oxford,  95. 

Torels,  the,  286. 

Torrigiano,  67,  76. 

Torrs,  Kirkcudbrightshire,  10. 

Tours,  MSS.  at,  144. 

Townley,  Charles,  155  n. 

Tower  of  the  Five  Orders,  8 1 . 

Towers :  see  Round  Towers. 

Tradescant  portraits,  1 66. 

Travellers*  Club,  108. 

Tresham,  Sir  Thomas,  8 1 . 

Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
93,95;  chapel  of,  92, 

Trinity  College,  Dublin,  102. 

Trinity  House,  Leith,  203. 

Trunch  Church,  Norfolk,  timber 
roof.  71. 

Truro  Cathedral,  1 1 0. 

Tuam,  1 3. 

Turner,  Charles,  1 56  n. 

325 


Turner.  J.  M.  W.,  211-214, 
217,  219,  243,  262-264, 
271;  Battle  of  Fort  Rock, 
264 ;  Burial  of  Wilkie,  214; 
The  Deluge,  214;  The 
Doges'  Palace,  264;  Con- 
woj}  Castle,  213;  Crossing 
the  Brook,  214;  Edinburgh 
(water  colour),  264;  The 
Fighting  "  Temeraire,"  214; 
Fishermen  on  a  Lee  Shore, 
213;  A  Frosty  Morning, 
214;  Kilgarren  Castle,  2\ 3; 
Mercur]}  and  Herse,  214; 
Rain,  Steam,  and  Speed, 
214;  Rockets  and  Blue 
Lights,  2]  4;  Spit  head,  214; 
The  Sunof  Venice  going  to 
Sea,  214;  Ulysses  Deriding 
Polyphemus,  214;  Walton 
Bridges,  l]^. 

Turner's  "  Liber  Studiorum," 
219, 

Tweedmouth,  Lord  (collec- 
tion), 203. 

Tynemouth  Abbey,  46. 


u 

United   University  Club.    119, 

120. 
University  Galleries,  see  under 

Oxford. 


VanDyck,  167-171,173,  189, 
202,  250,  251,  257;  Por- 
traits of  the  Marchese  and 
the  Marchesa  Cataneo,  168; 
Charles  L,  174;  Cornelius 
Van  der  Gheest,  1 68. 

Valence,  Aymer  de.  statue  of, 
284. 

Valence,  William  de,  statue  of, 
284. 

Vanbrugh,  98,  99,  101. 

Van  der  Goes,  Hugo,  1 62. 

Van  Huysum,  155. 

Van  Rensselaer,  Mrs.,  45. 

Van  Ravesteyn.  169. 

Van  Staren.  Dirk,  1 32  n. 

Vardy,  98,  100. 

Varley,  Cornelius,  265. 

Varley,  J.,  265. 

Vaughan,  Henry,  264. 

Velazquez,  190,  202,  224; 
Pope  Innocent  X.,  202. 


INDEX 


Vellert.  Dierick  J.,  132  n. 

Verelst.  173. 

Verrio.  175,  176. 

Vertue,  78.  I  72. 

Verulam,  Lord,  166. 

Victoria  and  Albert  Museum, 
120.  127.  138.  140.  141. 
211.  217,  221.  222.  223, 
225,  226,  231,  251,  258. 
261.262. 

Victoria  Tower,  1 1 0. 

Vincent,  George,  219;  Green- 
wich Hospital,  219. 

VioUet-le-Duc,  41. 

Vulgate,  Alcuin's,  1 44. 


w 

Wadham    College,    Wren     at, 

92. 
Waldorf  Hotel.  117. 
Wales,  12. 

Wales,  Prince  of,  200.  261. 
Walker.  A.  G..  307  ;  The  Last 

Plague.   307;    Sleep,    307; 

The  Thorn,  307. 
Walker.  Frederick,  268.  272. 
Walker,  James,  1  55  n. 
Walker,  Robert.  166.  170. 
Wallace  Collection.    189.    193. 

258. 
Wallingford  Screen,  see   under 

St.  Albans. 
Wallis.  Henry,  239. 
Walpole.    Horace,    108.     166, 

172. 
Waltham  Abbey.  30. 
Waltham  Cross.  56. 
Walton.  E.  A..  241. 
Walton.  Henry.  198. 
Wanstead.  Essex.  100. 
Wantage.  Lady.  213. 
War   Office.    Whitehall.    118; 

sculptures  on.  306. 
Wars  of  the  Roses.  146.  161. 
Ward,   James.   22 1 ;   A  lderne\) 

Cattle,    221;    Gordale   Scar, 

221;  Harlech  Castle,  22]. 
Ward.     William     and    James, 

156n. 
Wardrop,    J.    C.     (collection), 

203. 
Warwick,     Lord     (collection), 

193. 
Waterhouse.  Alfred.  111.   119. 
Waterhouse.  J.   W..   247;    St. 

Cecilia.    247;    St.   Eulalia, 


L 


247;  Hyles  and  the  Nymphs, 
247  ;  Mariamne,  247  ;  The 
Magic  Circle,  247. 

Waterlow,  Ernest,  268. 

Watson.  Caroline.  154. 

Watson.  James.  154. 

Watson.  Thomas.  1 55  n. 

Watteau.  180.  196. 

Watts,  G.  F..  226,  227,  229, 
243,  297  ;  Clytie,  297  ;  Fata 
Morgana,  227 ;  Russell 
Gurney,  227 ;  First  Naval 
Victory  of  the  English,  226  ; 
Hope,  230;  Hugh  Lupus, 
298;  Lord  Stratford  de  Red- 
clyffe,  227  ;  Scene  from  the 
Decameron,  227 ;  Time, 
Death  and  Judgment,  227  ; 
Vital  Energy,  298 :  IValter 
Crane,  227;  IVilliam  Morris, 
227. 

Watts,  John,  154. 

Webb,  Aston,  119. 

Webb,  John,  91. 

Webb,  Philip,  122. 

Webber.  John.  262. 

Wellington.  205. 

Wells.  17;  Bishop's  Palace, 
57;  Cathedral,  46,  47,  49. 
57 ;  Bishop  Beckington's 
buildings,  64 ;  Chapter- 
house, 55  ;  sculptures  at, 
279-281;  west  front,  42. 

Wertheimer,  C.  (collection), 
192.201. 

West.  Benjamin,  207,  208; 
Death  of  Wolfe,  207. 

Westall,  207. 

Westley,  John,  81. 

Westmacott,  Richard,  294. 

Westminster  Abbey,  24,  26, 
27,38,48,49,66,121.  160. 
166.  284.  310;  Chapter- 
house, 55  and  n.;  Henry 
VII. 's  Chapel,  64;  north 
porch,  110;  St.  Stephen's 
Chapel,  51-55.  58,  160; 
sculptures,  278-80 ;  tombs, 
288;  towers,  95. 

Westminster  Cathedral.  1 20  ; 
bronze  screen,  1 30 ;  Bramp- 
ton Chapel,  111. 

Westminster,  Duke  of  (collec- 
tion), 213. 

Westminster  Hall,  63,  226; 
timber  roof,  70.  7 1 . 

Westminster,  King's  Robing 
Room.  224. 

Westminster  Palace.  109. 

326 


Westminster  School,  dormitory 
in.  99. 

Weston  Barton.  127. 

Wheatley.  Francis,  200. 

Whistler,  J.  McN.,  147,  148. 
240,241,272. 

Whitby,  Synod  of,  144. 

White,  George,  153. 

Whitehall,  130.  164.  206;  iron 
gates  in.  1 64. 

Whitehall  Palace,  87-90; 
Rubens'  ceiling  in.  1  75. 

Whitehead.  Jeffrey  (collection), 
258. 

White  Tower.  30. 

Whitton  Hall,  see  Kneller 
Hall. 

Wigtownshire,  12. 

Wilkie,  David,  147,222.  223, 
271  ;  Bathsheha,  223;  Blind 
Man 's  Buff.  223 ;  The  Blind 
Fiddler.  223;  Boys  digging 
for  Rats.  223 ;  Knox  dispens- 
ing the  Sacrament,  223; 
Reading  of  a  Will,  223; 
The  Refusal.  223;  Village 
Fair,  223. 

Waiiam  of  Ireland,  284. 

William  II.,  30. 

Williams.  F.  E..  120. 

Williams.  R..  152. 

Willingale  Spain.  Essex,  127. 

Wilson.  Richard,  194-196, 
210.211,267;  Niobe.  195; 

Scene  in  Italy,  195. 
WiltonHouse,  90,  91,  166. 
Wimperis,  E.  M.,  268. 
Winchester,  145. 
Winchester  Cathedral.  29,  30, 

63,65.69.275.  276;  stained 

glass  at,  1 34. 
Winde,  97. 
Windsor,  251. 

Windsor  Beauties,  see  Kneller. 
Windsor  Castle,  58,   109,  205. 

290. 
Windus,  W.  L.,  235. 
Wingham,  82. 
Wissing,  173. 

Witham,  dagger  found  in,  10. 
"  Wits'  Commonwealth,"    166. 
Wollaton  Hall,  Notts,  77,  79. 

81. 
Wolsey.  Cardinal.  73-76. 
Woltmann,  164. 
Wood,  architect,  92. 
Wood,  Derwent,  308. 
Wood  of  Bath.  98,  101. 
Wood,  William,  255. 


INDEX 


Woods,  Henry.  245. 
WooUett,  WiUiam.  1 50  n. 
Woolner.  Thomas.  230,  295. 
Woolwich,      301  ;      Academy, 

261. 
Wootton,  209.  220. 
Worcester  Cathedral.    30,  48  ; 

Chapter-house,  54. 
Worcester  College,  Oxford,  96. 
Worksop  Priory,  127. 
Wraxall.  10. 
Wren.  Christopher,  81,  92-97, 

100,  105.  106.  115.  116. 
Wren.  Matthew,  92. 
Wrexham   Church.    Tower   of, 

68. 
Wright,  Joseph  Michael,  1 73. 


Wright  of  Derby.  154.200. 
Wyatt.  James,  31.294. 
Wyatville,  Jeffrey.  109. 
Wyllie.  W.  L..243;  Baflk  of 

the  Nile.  243;    Toil.  Glitter. 

Grime,  and  Wealth.  243. 
Wyck.  Jan.  209. 
Wynants.  189. 
Wynne,  see  Winde. 


Y 

Yarborough.    Lord    (collection), 

165. 
Yerkes  (collection),  214. 
York,  Duke  of.  93. 


York  House,  Strand,  the  water- 
gate.  90. 

York  Minster.  29.  49.  52.  58. 
63  ;  Chapter-house.  54  ; 
choir-screen,  64;  Five  Sisters 
(window).  49;    stained   glass 

in.  130,  131.  133,  134;  rood 

screen  at,  70;  Tower  of.  69. 
Young,  John,  1  56  n. 
Young,  William,  1  1 8. 


Zincke.  C.  F.,  258. 
ZuccareUi,  194. 


327 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Abingdon  Town  Hall,  101. 

Adoration  of  the  Magi,  page  xlii. 

All  Souls  College,   Chapel,  Oxford,  63  ;   iron 

gates,  127. 
Angel  Choir,  Lincoln,  south  door,  274. 
Annunciation,  British  Museum,  282. 
Apocalypse,   page  from   an,    British    Museum, 

143. 
Ardagh  Chalice,  Dublin  Museum,  131. 
Ardagh  Chalice,  foot  of.  11. 
Arundel  MS.,  124  and  125. 
Ashburnham  House,  Westminster,  89. 
Audley  End,  Essex,  75. 
Bacon,  Statue  of  Dr.  Johnson,  290. 
Bank  of  Ireland,  Dublin  (Castell),  100. 
Barton-on-Humber  Church,  1 8. 
Bates,  Harry,  Hounds  in  Leash,  304. 
Beauchamp  Chapel,  Warwick,  62. 
Beaufort,  Margaret,  portrait  of,  161. 
Belfast   Town   Hall    (E.    Brumwell   Thomas), 

115. 
Bell,  Shrine  of  St.  Patrick's,  13. 
Bettes,  John,  Portrait  of  Edmund  Butts.  162. 
Beverley     Minster,    48;     Percy    Shrine,    56; 

West  Front,  66. 
Birdlip,  see  under  Mirror, 
Bishop,  found  at  Flawford,  Notts,  281. 
Blenheim,  elevation,  103;  plan,  103. 
Blooteling,  Abr.,  Duke  of  Monmouth,  151. 
Bogle,  Portrait  of  a  Gentleman,  255  ;  Portrait 

of  a  Man.  257. 
Bone,  H.,  Portrait  of  Himself .  258. 
Bonington  R.  P.,  Chateau  of  the  Duchesse  de 

Berri,  2\7;   Verona.  262. 
Book  of  Durrow,  page  in  the,  13. 
Book  of  Kells,  page  in  the,  141. 
Bow  Church  (Wren),  93. 
Bradford-on-Avon  Church,  21. 
Branston  Church,  22. 
Brixworth  Church,  2 1 . 
Brock,  The  Black  Prince.293;  Gainsborough, 

294  ;  Cenotaph   of  Leighton.  293  ;  Bishop 

Philpot.  292. 
Bronze  Collar,  from  Wraxall,  9. 
Brooking,  Sea-piece,  206. 


Brothers  of  Joseph,  The,  Salisbury,  277. 
Brown,  Ford  Madox,  Elijah  and  the  IVidow's 

Son,  230. 
Bull,  Portrait  of  John,  by  an  unknown  painter, 

166, 
Burne-Jones,     Chant    d' Amour,     232;     The 

Depths  of  the  Sea,  232. 
Burridge  F.,  Mill  in  Wirrall,  148. 
Canada  Gates,  Buckingham  Palace,  1  29. 
Canterbury  Cathedral,  62  ;  Angel  Tower,  52  ; 

Crypt,  35  ;  Gateway,  70. 
Carlisle  Cathedral  Choir,  56. 
Casino  near  Dublin  (W.  Chambers),  101. 
Cattermole,  G.,  Macbeth,  264. 
Celtic    Disk,    10;     Enamel,    British    Museum, 

131;    Fibula.   8;    Page  from   Gospel,  142; 

Shield,  8 ;  Tankard,  handle  of,  9. 
Censing  Angel,  Lincoln  Cathedral,  277. 
Chalon,  Hastings.  225. 
Chester,  old  houses  at,  81 . 
Chichester  Cathedral,  nave,  34. 
Chimney-piece  (Norman  Shaw),  123. 
Chirk  Castle,  Oswestry,  84  ;  Long  Gallery,  77. 
Christ  Church,  Dublin,  45. 
Christ  Church,  Oxford,  1 6 ;  Design  for  Belfry 

by  Bodley,    1 09 ;  Chapter-house,  43  ;  Spire, 

43. 
Cibber,   C.    G.,    Melancholy  and  Madness, 

289. 
Cibber,  Bust  of  Colley,  290. 
Circular  Boss,  Chester,  276. 
Clapham  Church,  Beds,  23. 
Cobham  Hall,  Kent.  96. 
College   of   Science,   South  Kensington  (Aston 

Webb),  116. 
Colton,  W.  R.,  The  Girdle,  307  ;  The  Image- 
Finder,  307. 
Commercial   Bank  of   Scotland    (S.   Mitchell), 

122. 
Compton  Winyates,  Warwickshire.  68. 
Constable,    Cottage     in     a     Cornfield,     214; 

Salisbury,  272;    Sketch   for    the    Leaping 

Horse,  214;    Sketch  for  the  Hay    Wain, 

215;   Trees,  272  ;  The  Valley  Farm,  213. 
Cooper,  S.,  Richard  Cromwell,  254. 


L 


328 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Cope,  The  AscolJ.  135. 

Cope  of  St.  Silvester,  St.  John  Lateran,   1 34 ; 

Detail  of,  138. 
Cope,  Syon,  V.  and  A.,  Museum,  132. 
Copley,    John    Singleton,     Death    of    Major 

Pierson,  204. 
Cormack's  Chapel,  Cashel,  32. 
Cosway,  Lady  Anne  Fane,  256;  Portrait  of 

a  Man.  256  ;  Duke  of  Wellington,  256. 
Cotes.  F.,  PaulSandhy,  192. 
Cotman,  Centaur,  The,  27 1  ;  Landscape,  27 1  ; 

Shipping  at  the  Mouth  of  the  Thames,  217; 

Turning  the  Sod,  270. 
Cotton,  MS.,  Psalter,  125. 
Cousins,  Samuel,  Lady  Peel,  157. 
Cox,  David,  Cornfield,  264 ;   Windsor  Castle, 

263. 
Crome,  Chapel  Fields,  Norwich,  209  ;  Poring- 

land  Oak,  210. 
Cross  of  Cong,  1 2. 
Cross,  High,  Monasterbolce,  7. 
Crozier,  1  1 . 

Customs  House,  Dublin  (Gandon),  100. 
De  Morgan,  Mrs.,  Mercy  and  Truth,  233. 
De  Wint,  Peter,  Lincoln.  263  ;  Oxford,  262. 
Dexter  Leaf   of  a  Diptych,   British  Museum, 

140. 
Divinity  School,  Oxford,  60. 
Dixon,  J.,  Elizabeth  and  Emma  Crewe,  151. 
Dobson,  Portrait  of  Endymion  Porter,  168. 
Doorway  (Lanchester  and  Richards),  121. 
Dover  Castle  Church,  22. 
Downman,  Mrs.  Siddons,  267. 
Drury,  A.,    Base   of  Lamp-standard,   312; 

Joseph    Priestley,    305 ;     Group    on    War 

Office,  306. 
Durham   Cathedral,   29 ;    Chapter-house,   32 ; 

central  tower,  66  ;  nave,  29. 
Elarls  Barton  Church,  Tower,  1 9. 
Edinburgh    College    (Adam    and    Anderson), 

104. 
Edinburgh,  A  shop  in,  122, 
Edward    III.,    Figure    of,   Westminster,    287  ; 

Head  of.  Gloucester,  285. 
Deanor,  Figure  of  Queen,  Westminster,  286. 
EUectra  House,  Finsbury  Pavement  (Belcher), 

119. 
Elgin  Cathedral,  Choir  and  Chapter-house,  44. 
Dy    Cathedral,     Ceiling    of     Bishop     West's 

Chapel,  74 ;  Udy  Chapel,  55  ;  Nave,  34  ; 

West  Porch.  42. 
Elty,  The  Bather,  220;  Crucifixion.  2\9. 
Exeter  Cathedral,  West  Front,  50. 
Exeter  College  Chapel  (Gilbert  Scott),  107. 
Fehr.  H.  C.  5/.  George.  307. 
Fielding.  Copley,  Vale  of  Irihing,  263. 
Figure    with    Model    of   a  Church,  Flawford, 

Notts,  282. 
Finch.  F.  O.,  Still  Summer.  265. 


Fisher,  Eldward,  Hope  Nursing  Love,  153. 

Fitton.  H.,  St.  Miry,  Paris.  146. 

Flatman,  Portrait,  254  ;  Portrait  of  a  Lady, 
254  ;  Portrait  of  a  Man,  254. 

Foley,  J.  H.,  Outram,  29]. 

Ford.  Onslow.  Irving  as  Hamlet,  302  ;  Monu- 
ment to  Queen  Victoria,  Manchester,  302; 
Maternity,  302. 

Fountains  Abbey.  31  ;  Chapel  of  the  Nine 
Altars,  48  ;  Cloister.  36. 

Frampton.  G..  Dame  Alice  Owen,  304. 

Furse.  Charles,  Diana  of  the  Uplands,  244 ; 
Home  from  the  Ride,  243. 

Gaiety  Theatre.  London  (Norman  Shaw).  1 17. 

Gainsborough.  Blue  Boy,  185;  Female  Figure, 
268;  Hon.  Mrs.  Graham,  183;  Miss 
Haverfield,  185;  Portrait  of  Himself  184; 
Landscape,  188;  Sketch  for  a  Landscape, 
260;  The  Morning  Walk,  187;  Lady 
Mulgrave,  1 85  ;  Mrs.  {PerdHa)  Robinson, 
188;  Mrs.  Siddons,  184;  Mrs.  Stone 
Norton,  183;   The  Watering  Place,  186. 

Gallerus,  Oratory  of.  4. 

Geddes,  A.,  The  Artist's  Mother,  145. 

Gibbons,  Grinling,  James  IL,  289. 

Gilbert.  Alfred,  Icarus,  309;  Retable,  St. 
Albans,  299 ;  St.  George,  Tomb  of  Duke 
of  Clarence,  309 ;  Tragedy  and  Comedy. 
309;  Memorial  to  Queen  Victoria,  Man- 
chester, 3 1 0.  3 1 1 . 

Girtin,  Thomas.  On  the  Wharf e,  26 1 . 

Glamis  Castle.  Forfarshire.  83. 

Glasgow  Assurance  Building.  Euston  Square, 
London  (Beresford  Pile),  1  14. 

Glasgow  Cathedral,  47 ;  Crypt,  5 1 ;  Town 
Hall,  118. 

Glastonbury  Abbey,  33. 

Gloucester  Cathedral,  Central  Tower,  71  ; 
Cloisters,  7 1  ;  South  Porch,  65. 

Gold  Torque  from  Limavady.  5. 

Good,  T.  S.,  The  Reader,  224. 

Green,  Valentine,  The  Ladies  Waldegrave, 
153. 

Greenhill,  Mrs.  Jane  Middleton,  1 72. 

Greenstead  Church,  1 9. 

Greenwich  Hospital  (Inigo  Jones),  90; 
(Wren),  94. 

Gregory,  E.  J..  Piccadilly,  231 . 

Haddon  Hall,  gallery.  78. 

Haden.  Seymour,  The  Agamemnon,  148. 

Hamilton.  Hugh,  /.  P.  Curran,  207. 

Hampton  Court  Palace.  S.E.  angle  (Wren), 
95  ;  Ceiling  of  Wolsey's  closet.  74  ;  Hall,  73  ; 
West  front,  71 ;  Wren's  quadrangle,  91 . 

Hardwicke  F^all,  Derbyshire,  76 ;  Presence 
Chamber,  76. 

Harley  MS.,  page  from,  British  Museum,  144. 

Harrington's  Ariosto.  page  from,  1 50. 

Hatfield  House,  Herts..  75. 

329 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


HayU.  John,  Portrait  of  Pepys.  173. 
Heame,  Thomas,  Dutch  Shipping,  261 . 
Henry    V.'s  Chantry,   Figure  in,  Westminster, 

280. 
Henry  VII. 's  Chapel,  Westminster,  61 . 
Milliard,  N.,  Double  Locket.  252;  Portrait  of 

Himself  250;  Portrait  of  his  Father,  250; 

Lady  A  rahella  Stuart,  25  1 . 
Hogarth,    William  Hogarth,   title-page;    His 

Own  Servants.  179;  The  Shrimp-Girl,  180; 

Marriage  a  la  Mode,  1 78. 

Hogarth,     Peg    IVojffington     (colored     print), 

facing  page  1 80. 
Holbein,  Anne  of  CleOes,  249;   Follower  of, 

A  Child,  249  ;  School  of,  Portrait.  163. 
Holkham  House.  Norfolk  (Kent),  98. 
HoU,    Frank,    Samuel    Cousins,    239;    Earl 

Spencer,  239. 
Holland,  J.,    Colleone  Statue,   Venice,   226; 

Venice,  264. 
Hone,  Nathaniel,  Horace  iVolpole,  193. 
Hoppner,    The  Douglas  Children,    196;    The 

Frankland  Sisters,  1 96;  Portrait  of  a  Lady, 

195,  196  (four  examples). 
Horse  Guards.  Whitehall  (Kent),  98. 
Hoskins,  A  Lady,  250. 
Houses  of  Parliament  (C.  Barry),  105. 
Howth  Castle,  co.  Dublin,  83. 
Hughes.  John,  Monument  to  Queen  Victoria, 

Dublin.  308. 
Humphreys,  Ozias,  Warren  Hastings,  257. 
Hunt,  Holman,    The  Shadow  of  Death,  234. 
Ilminster  Church,  69. 
Initial  from  Missal,  British  Museum,  143. 
Institute  of   Chartered  Accountants   (Belcher), 

118. 
Insurance    Office,    Edinburgh  (  J.    M.     Dick- 

Peddie).  121. 
Ivory,  1 4th  Century.  V.  and  A.  Museum,  1 58. 
Ivory  Triptych,  British  Museum,  1 40. 
Jackson,  John,  Portrait  of  Himself,  225. 
John,  Goscombe,  Duke  of  Devonshire,  304; 

The  Elf  305. 
Jones.  John,  Lady  Caroline  Price,  1 54. 
Jonson,   Cornelius,   Portrait  of  a  Lady,    167; 

Portrait  of  the  Earl  of  Portland.  167. 
Joseph,  Samuel.  Samuel  Wilberforce,  291. 
Keble   College   Chapel,   Oxford    (Butterfield), 

108. 
Kedleston    Hall,    Derbyshire    (Paine    and    R. 

Adam),  99. 
Kilconnel  Abbey,  Cloister,  47. 
Kilcroney,  Ireland,  6. 

King's  College  Chapel,  Cambridge,  61,  64. 
KinmelPark  (Nesfield).  116. 
Kirkby  Hall,  Northants.  104. 
Kneller,  Goderl  de  Ginkel,  175. 
Knole,    Kent,     79;     Bedroom,    79;    Gallery, 

79;  Colonnade,  79. 


Knole  Chapel,  80. 

Lance,  George,  Fruit,  223. 

Landseer,  E.,  Suspense,  218  ;    War,  219. 

Law    Courts,    central   hall    (G.    Street),    107; 

Strand  entrance,  1 08. 
Lawrence.    /.  /.   Angerstein,  201  ;    Princess 

Charlotte,   202;    Lady  Dover  and  Child, 

202  ;    Miss  Farren,  203  ;  Pope  Pius   VIL, 

203;  Mrs.   Wolff.  20). 
La wson,  Cecil.   Wharfedale,  24] . 
Lavery,  J.,  Spring,  240. 
Layer  Mamey  Towers,  70. 
Lead  Urn,  Parham.  130. 
Leighton,   The  Music  Lesson.  241  ;  Summer 

Moon.  242  ;  Athlete  and  Python.  292. 
Lely,     Portrait     of  Lady     Bellasys,      169; 

Comtesse    de    Gramont,    171;     Miss   Jane 

Kelkway,  170. 
Leslie,    C.    R.,    Les  Femmes  Savantes.  223  ; 

Taming  of  the  Shrew.  222  ;    Uncle  Toby 

and  Widow  Wadham,  222. 
Leuchars  Church,  Fife.  33. 
Lewis,  G.  F.,  Lilium  Auratum.  237. 
Uchfleld    Cathedral.    36;    Choir.    52;    West 

Front,  57. 
Lincoln   Cathedral,   36 ;    Central  Tower.    53  ; 

Detail,  South  Doorway,  276  ;  East  Transept, 

37  ;  West  Front.  39, 
Lindisfarne  Gospels,  page  from,  141. 
Linton.  J.  D.,  Maundy  Thursday,  242. 
Little    Saxham    Church,    32 ;     Tower    Arch, 

22. 
Logsdail,  W..  An  Earl])  Victorian.  241. 
Longford  CasUe.  Wilts,  78. 
Longleat,  Wilts,  73. 
Lucas.  David.  Salisbury,  155. 
Lyemore.  Montgomeryshire.  82. 
MacArdell,  J.,  Lady  Chambers.  152. 
McKennel.  B..  Circe.  306. 
Madonna.  Chapter  House,  York,  279. 
Madonna,  Flawford.  282. 
Magdalen  College.  Oxford.  62  ;  Chapel,  63. 
Maghera.  Ireland.  Doorway  at,  5. 
Malton,  The  Tholsel,  Dublin,  261 . 
Manchester  Town  Hall  (Waterhouse),  106. 
Mansion  House,  London  (G.  Dance).  99. 
Mapperton,  85. 
Marischal       College,       Aberdeen       (Marshall 

Mackenzie).  113. 
Market  Overton.  Tower  Arch.  21 . 
Merton  College  Chapel.  Oxford.  54.  64. 
Millais,  Hearts  are  Trumps,  229;  Portrait  of 

J.    C.   Hook,   236;    Lorenzo  and  Isabella, 

234;  Souvenir  of  Velazquez,  236;  Yeoman 

of  the  Guard,  235. 
Mirror,  from  Birdlip.  1 0. 
Montacute.  Somersetshire,  77.  84. 
Moore.  Albert,  The  Open  Book.  243. 
Moreton  Old  Hall,  Uncs.,  82. 


330 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Morland.  G..  The  Stable,  218. 

Mulready,  The  Sonnet,  221. 

Nasmyth,  Cottage  in  Hyde  Park,  221 . 

Navigator,  Portrait  of  a,  by  an  unknown 
painter,  164. 

New  College  Chapel,  Oxford.  63. 

Newgate  Street,  doorway  in,  121. 

New  Zealand  Chambers,  Leadenhall  Street 
(Norman  Shaw),  115. 

Norwich  Cathedral,  Choir,  28;  Nave,  28. 

Oliver,  Isaac,  Anne  of  Denmark.  253; 
Prince  Charles,  253;  Henry,  Prince  of 
IVales,  253 ;  Lady  Hunsdon,  25 1  ;  James  I., 
253;  A  Lad],,  253;  Portrait  of  a  Man, 
252;  Sackville,  Earl  of  Dorset,  frontis- 
piece; Sir  Philip  Sidney,  252. 

Opie,  John,  Mrs.  Margaret  Crowe,  194. 

Opus  Anglicanum,  British  Museum,  137. 

Orchardson,  W.  Q.,  Her  first  Dance,  238; 
Master  Baby,  238. 

Panel  from  St.  Stephen's,  Westminster,  1 59. 

Pegram,  F.,  Fortune,  305. 

Penrhyn  Castle,  Great  Hall  (Hopper) ,  1 06. 

Penshurst  Place,  Kent,  58. 

Peterborough  Cathedral,  West  Front,  44; 
Figures  on  Gateway  of  Close,  278. 

Phillips.  Byron,  224. 

Piccadilly  Hotel  (Norman  Shaw),  1 16. 

Picta,  Breadsall.  Derbyshire.  281. 

Pine.  R.  E..  Garrick,  194. 

Plimer,  Portrait  of  a  Lady,  257. 

Pond,  A.,  Peg  WofUngton,  206. 

Portrait,  unidentified,  163.  165. 

Powis  Castle,  Gallery,  80. 

Radcliffe  Library,  Oxford  (Gibbs),  101. 

Raeburn,  Mrs.  James  Campbell,  198;  Major 
Clunes,  200  ;  Mrs.  Ferguson,  198;  Portrait 
of  Himself  179;  Lord  Newton.  197;  Sir 
John  Sinclair,  200;  Nathaniel  Spens.  199; 
Lady  Steuart  of  Coltness,  197. 

Ramsay,  Allan,  Lady  Louisa  Connolly,  1 92 ; 
Caroline  Lady  Holland,  193. 

Repton,  crypt,  24. 

Reynolds,  Sir  J.,  Age  of  Innocence,  182; 
Duchess  of  Devonshire  and  Child,  1 82  ; 
Garrick  between  Tradegy  and  Comedy, 
180;  Qibbon,  181  ;  Portrait  of  Himself, 
1 79 ;  Dr.  Johnson,  1 80 ;  Miss  Monckton, 
183;  Nelly  O'Brien,  181;  Two  Gentle- 
men, 181 . 

Reynolds,  Viscountess  Crosbie  (colored  print), 
facing  page  206. 

Richard  II.,  Head  of,  Westminster,  286; 
Portrait  of,  1 60 ;  and  Queen.  286 ;  and 
Saints.  161. 

Riley,  John,  Portrait  of  Chiffinch,  1 76. 

Robertson,  Andrew,  Portrait  of  a  Lady,  256. 

Rochester  Cathedral,  Doorway,  5 1 . 

Rock  of  Cashel,  31. 


Romney,    Lady    Beachamp     Procter,     189; 

Children  of  Earl  Gower,  190;  Mrs.  Currie, 

191 ;  Euphrosyne,  191 ;  Mrs.  Jordan,  191 ; 

Lady  Arabella  Ward,  190. 
Romney,     The    Seamstress     (colored    print), 

facing  page  266. 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  Borgia  s'amuse,  265;  King 

Rene's    Honeymoon,    265;     Lilith,     231; 

Mrs.  Morris,  23 1  ;  Regina  Cordium,  23 1 . 
Rothwell,  Calisto,  221. 
Round  Tower,  Brechin,  15. 
RoyalMS.,  IDxFol.  6.  142. 
Russell,  John,  Pastel  Portrait,  268. 
Rylands  Library,  Manchester,  112. 
St.  Albans,  plan,  27 ;  Tower,  27. 
St.  Bartholomew's  Church,  London,  25. 
St.  Benet's  Tower.  Cambridge.  24. 
St.  Bride's,  neet  Street  (Wren),  93. 
St.    Clement     Dane's,     London     (Wren    and 

Gibbs),  100. 
St.  Dolough's  Church,  co.  Dublin,  46. 
St.  Ethelbert's  Gate,  Norwich,  5 1 . 
St.   Etheldreda's  Chapel,  Ely  Place,  Holborn, 

54. 
St.      Frideswide's     Shrine,      Christ      Church, 

Oxford,  65. 
St.  George's  Chapel,  Windsor,  59. 
St.     George's    Church,     Doncaster     (Gilbert 

Scott),  106. 
St.  George's  Hall,  Liverpool,  105. 
St.  Giles'  Church,  Wrexham,  69. 
St.     James'     Street,     chambers     in     (Norman 

Shaw),  122. 
St.  John's  Chapel,  Tower  of  London,  26;  plan, 

26. 
St.     John's    Church,      Frome,     screen     from, 

128. 
St.    John   the   Evangelist,   Red    Lion    Square, 

108. 
St.  Magwe,  Shrine  of.  Figures  on,  14. 
St.    Martin's  Church,   Canterbury,   20;  Font, 

20. 
St.  Mary-le-Strand,  London  (Gibbs),  97. 
St.    Mary's    Church,    Oxford,     Porch     (Inigo 

Jones),  90. 
St.  Patrick's  Bell,  Shrine  of,  13. 
St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  Dublin,45. 
St.    Paul's  Cathedral,    London    (Wren),    91; 

from  Ludgate  Hill,  86. 
St.    Paul's    Church,    Covent    Garden     (Inigo 

Jones).  87. 
St.  Regulus'  Church,  23. 
St.    Stephen's    Church,    Walbrook,     London, 

92. 
Salisbury   Cathedral,   40;    Chapter-house,  49; 

Plan,  39  ;  IVIarket  Cross,  72. 
Sargent,  John.  Duchess  of  Portland,  245. 
Saxon  bas-relief,  Chichester,  275. 
Scott  Monument  (Kemp),  Eldinburgh,  109. 


331 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Scottish  National  Portrait  Gallery,  Doorway 
(Birnie  Rhind). 

Seaman,  Noah,  Portrait.  259. 

Seaton  Delaval,  102. 

Short,  Frank,  April  in  Kent,  147. 

Sizergh  Castle,  Room  in,  81 . 

Sleeping  Soldiers  on  the  Easter  Sepulchre, 
Lincoln,  274. 

Smart,  J.,  Portrait  of  a  Lady,  255. 

Smith,  J.  R.,  Mrs.  Carwardine  and  Child, 
156;  Sir  Harbord  Harbord,  155. 

Somerset  House  (W.  Chambers),  97, 

Spencer,  Gervase,  Portrait,  258. 

Spencer  House,  St.  James",  London  (Vardy), 
102. 

Stark,  James,  Landscape  with  Wind  Mill, 
216;  Valley  of  the  Y  are,  2\5. 

Stevens,  Alfred,  Caryatid,  296;  Chalk  Draw- 
ing (2),  269;  Proposed  Memorial  of  the 
1851  Exhibition,  296;  A  Study,  270; 
Truth,  295;  Valour,  295;  Wellington 
Monument,  288,  294. 

Stocke,  Portrait  of  William,  by  an  unknown 
painter,  164. 

Stonehenge,  1,  2. 

Storey,  G.  A.,  The  Annunciation,  233. 

Stothard,  T.,  Intemperance,  204. 

Stubbs,  White  Horse  and  Groom,  205. 

Swan,  J.  M.,  Leopard  and  Tortoise,  303; 
Youth  of  Orpheus  (2),  303. 

Tapestry  at  Hatfield,  139. 

Tara  Brooch,  Dublin  Museum,  1 30. 

Tewkesbury  Abbey,  30. 

Thornewaite.     Ploughing  in  Sussex,  266. 

Thornton  Abbey,  gate-house,  68. 

Thornycroft,  Hamo,  Artemis,  300;  Bishop 
Creighton,  301  ;  Edward  L,  301  :  General 
Gordon, 300;  r/ieMon>er,301 ;  reucer,300. 

Toft,  Albert,  Victory,  306. 

Tomb,  285;  of  the  Earl  and  Countess  of 
Arundel,  Arundel,  281;  of  Edward  II., 
Gloucester  Cathedral,  53;  of  Edward  III., 
Westminster  Abbey,  59;  of  Queen  Eleanor, 
Westminster  Abbey,  126;  of  Archbishop 
Gray,  York,  280;  of  Sir  Ralph  Green, 
Lowick,  Northants,  283;  Hertford,  Salis- 
bury Cathedral,  78;  at  Holme-Pierrepoint, 
Notts.  283,  284;  of  King  John,  Worcester, 
287;  of  Archbishop  Peckham,  Canterbury, 
280;  in  Southwark  Cathedral,  284;  of  the 
Earl  of  Warwick,  Warwick,  64. 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  Gate-tower,  75. 
Trinity  CoUege,  Oxford.  289;  Chapel,  Oxford, 
92. 


Trinity  Church,  Holy,  Sloane  Street  (Sedding). 

no. 

Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  Clapham  Common;  210; 
Qarden  of  the  Hesperides,  211;  The 
Giudecca,  212;  Raglan  Castle,  156;  Sol 
di  Venezia,  212;  Spithead,  21 1  ;  Storm, 
212  ;  Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus,  209. 
United  Kingdom   Provident   Institution  (H.  T. 

Hare),  120. 
United  University  Club  (R.  Blomfield),  120. 
Vincent,  George,  Greenwich,  2 1 6. 
Wainwright,  The,Drinker,  267. 
Waldorf  Hotel,  London  (Marshall  Mackenzie), 

117. 
Walker,  A.  G.,  The  Thorn,  308. 
Wallingford  Screen,  St.  Albans,  65. 
Waltham  Cross,  restoration,  55. 
War  Office,  Whitehall  (Young),  1 19. 
Ward,  J.,  Alderney  Cattle,  218. 
Waterlow,  Ernest,  Warkworth  Castle,  266. 
Watson,  C.  J.,  St.  Jacques,  Lisieux.  146. 
Watson,  John,  Mrs.  Abingdon,  152. 
Watts,   G.  P.,    Walter  Crane,  247 ;   Russell 
Gurncy,   230;    Hope,  230;  Hugh  Lupus, 
298;   Vital  Energy.  297. 
Wells    Cathedral,    West     Front,    42;      From 
North      East      54 ;       Chapter-house,      55 ; 
Figures  on  West  Front,  278. 
West,  Benjamin,  Panel  for  ceiling,  208. 
Westminster      Abbey,      Chapter-house,      50; 

Choir,  37  ;  Nave,  38  ;  Plan,  38. 
Westminster    Cathedral,    Porch,    110;    Nave, 

111;  Brampton  Chapel,  111. 
Westminster  Hall,  68. 

Whistler,   J.    MacN.,   Miss  Alexander,  228; 
Portrait  of  the  Painter's  Mother,  244  ;  Miss 
Seymour  Haden,  147. 
Whitehall,    as   designed  by   Inigo  Jones,    87; 
ground    floor    plan,  88 ;    from    Miiller's  en- 
graving, 89. 
Wigmore  Street,  Shop  in,  120. 
Wilkie,  D.,   The   Pope   and   the    Goldsmith, 

145;   The  Refusal,  220. 
Wimperis,  Hay  field.  Amberley,  266. 
Winchester  Cathedral,  nave,  30,  60  ;  plan,  60. 
Windus,  Burt/ £://en,  232. 
Woodcut  Initial,  Foxe's  Martyrs,  1 49. 
Woodcut  from  the  "  Fall  of  Princes,"  149. 
Wyatt,  George///.,  290. 

York  Minster,  Chapter -house,  56,  57 ;  Choir, 
67  ;  The  Five  Sisters,  4 1  ;  South  Side,  67 ; 
Transept  and  Tower,  4 1 . 


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